Child sexual abuse in the UK is soaring, police have said, with 1,000 paedophile suspects being arrested each month and the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years.

The National Crime Agency said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.

Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.

The significant increase in every measure “really worries us”, said Rob Jones, the NCA’s director general of operations.

Leads about people interested in sexually abusing children had risen tenfold in a decade, he said, with 1,200 children a month being safeguarded.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I’m wondering if this is because how social media and internet culture fucks up the minds of young women, who then do sexy dances en poses for all the world to see.

    I installed Instagram to talk with a friend for a while and I noticed that the feed, without any interaction from me yet, was just young women “being sexy”. In many cases I suspect them to be underage.

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk
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    15 hours ago

    So me having to verify my age to buy NSFW games on steam and to use discord has accomplished nothing in the fight to protect children online?

    Well colour me surprised.

    • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip
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      14 hours ago

      I don’t think age verification for games and movies and such are meant to protect against sexual abuse. They’re there to protect the ‘feeble mind’ of children

  • Rioting Pacifist@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.

    What if we lived in a society which offered these people counciling instead of CSAM

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    21 hours ago

    How many are convicted and how many found guilty? Also is this a case of more crime or just being better at finding crime that was always there? Honestly not sure how you would be able to tell for that though.

  • tyrant@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    I’m honestly shocked there are that many pedophiles out there. What is WRONG with people?

    • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
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      9 hours ago

      People don’t just wear signs saying they’re a pedo.

      Odds are some of the people you know are pedos without you suspecting it.

    • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip
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      14 hours ago

      Police said there was no typical offender and previously it had been estimated that up to 840,000 adults in the UK had a sexual interest in children.

      If you’re easily shocked, don’t compare that to the total number of adults in the UK

      • a1studmuffin@aussie.zone
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        14 hours ago

        I had to check after this comment.

        840,000 pedophiles / 55,653,768 UK adults = 1.5% of all adults or 1 in 66 adults. That is much higher than I thought, and I assume it’s a similar ratio globally.

        • LwL@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Is it that surprising? Age play is a thing, plus so much porn has actresses dressed up to look like a child for some reason (the reason is people are into it). It’s just that, same as any other fetish that will harm people if acted on, 99% of that 1.5% are just gonna be normal about it and not diddle kids.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          That’s horrifying. Though I’m curious if sexologists and other non-law enforcement experts agree with those numbers and ratios

    • Nightwatch Admin@feddit.nl
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      21 hours ago

      Well, it’s a 1000 suspects, not necessarily 1000 convicted. And sadly, there are false accusations for examplentoo.

      Then again, if only 10% of such a 1000 is a legitimate suspect, then that’s shocking enough.

    • tomiant@piefed.social
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      21 hours ago

      I’m questioning the numbers. First off, they are suspects, secondly, what are the determining qualifiers? It wouldn’t shock me that the UK, who is in the process of creating a total surveillance shitopia using the justification of “protecting children” would have incentive to adopt extra broad definitions to scare people like yourself into believing pedos are everywhere around you so you would support their political agenda.

      • Echinoderm@aussie.zone
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        21 hours ago

        The perception that it’s primarily powerful men is a distortion from the Epstein files. Those are the ones that can traffic victims maybe, but more often sexual assaults on children are by people known to the victim, like family or friends of family.

      • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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        19 hours ago

        If you want a real answer it’s likely mostly because humans only recently became “civilised” as far as our evolutionary past is concerned.

        For our entire history before that, it has been evolutionarily advantageous to breed as early as biologically possible.

        These genetics still exist and having attraction to minors still haunts humanity. Some studies show very large numbers of adults, in the realm of 10-25% of the population, are attracted to minors. Usually the definition is below the age of consent in the country of the study.

        Almost all of these people understand it’s wrong and do not pursue these unwanted feelings. When people have overlaps between psychopathy, trauma or other conditions and the attraction to minors they often become offenders.

        • nykula@piefed.social
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          11 hours ago

          Having children early is a different demographic, teenagers with teenagers or young adults. Pedos are older people targeting teenagers, which I’m not sure has any significant evolutionary advantage. If anything, young women would be better off looking for young men, and vice versa. I’d argue pedos is a socially constructed phenomenon, powered mainly by power disbalance, not an evolutionary one.

          • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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            10 hours ago

            Evolutionary pressures and positive selection does not care for these constructs, getting older isn’t likely to decrease attraction to minors in these people

            • nykula@piefed.social
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              8 hours ago

              While they can be attracted, without social pressures the teenagers would simply tell them to go away. An image of an older entrepreneur or a star seeking very young companions is recognized as success. Older people have more autonomy and resources than young adults and teenagers. Being an equal in a company of other teenagers is seen as boring, less cool than a teenager in a company of adults. Socially constructed hierarchies of adults over children like these add up, leading to predators not being prevented as much as they should. In case of Epstein, he was considered normal as long as he was perceived as targeting young women in their late teens as a 40 year-old man, which I think should be much more frowned upon; instead, it’s being celebrated, not by evolution but by adults making conscious decisions.

              • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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                7 hours ago

                These are very new concepts over the duration of evolution. Grooming has probably existed since the dawn of social structures

        • cecilkorik@piefed.ca
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          21 hours ago

          Many sociopaths are not limited by their lack of empathy and are able to navigate the systems of society with ease in ways that people with morals simply can’t or won’t. As a result, it seems likely that a very high proportion of the people historically and currently in powerful positions are in fact sociopaths. Our systems were never designed to defeat sociopathic tendencies, in fact they tend to reward them. And now that the sociopaths are in power, they begin to realize that nobody can stop them, and they become even more brazen as they make sure the systems reward them even more, and make systems that will never stop rewarding them.

    • leftascenter@jlai.lu
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      21 hours ago

      Sorry to break it to you

      world stats

      https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/nearly-half-sexual-abuse-first-happens-age-15-or-younger-global

      Key takeaways

      The prevalence of sexual violence against children (SVAC) is high, with nearly one out of five women and one out of seven men around the globe who are survivors.

      Regardless of regional or economic status, SVAC prevalence among women is substantial, even in high-income countries such as the Netherlands (30%), New Zealand (29%), the US (28%), and the UK (24%).

      Low- and middle-income nations like Chile, Costa Rica, India, and Rwanda recorded a high prevalence among women of at least 30%; among men in Bangladesh and Côte d’Ivoire, the prevalence was 28%.

    • cecilkorik@piefed.ca
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      22 hours ago

      Well, when all the world leaders are doing it, and none of them have been punished for it… maybe some people now think that’s the way you become president, like your parents always told you you could. See, we’ve just been doing it wrong all along, apparently the secret skill we were lacking was fucking children /s

  • tomiant@piefed.social
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    21 hours ago

    When there is “significant increase in every measure”, then that usually means that they changed the measure.

      • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        21 hours ago

        I had the same thought, except “do the US next, and start at the top.” Because so what if you jail 1000 paedophiles in the US. They’re all empowered by knowing their president is one as well and that he seems untouchable. Just like he’s empowered racists and homophobes and others who identify as like him.

        The UK has done a fabulous job; they’ve had a lot of high profile cases and there’s still much work to be done, but they heard a royal was in the Trump-Epstein files and they stripped him of his title. That’s awesome and people in the US would love to see the same happen to their “royals” (i.e. the wealthy).