The latest Childline research has revealed that boys are more than twice as likely as girls to receive help and advice from the service for worries about ‘sextortion’.
Sextortion is a form of online blackmail that involves the threat of sharing nude or semi-nude images or videos to extort money or force someone to do something against their will.
In the first nine months of this year, we delivered more than 500 counselling sessions to children and young people about sexually coerced online extortion. Where the gender was recorded, 63% of these sessions were delivered to boys compared to 36% with girls. This is almost an exact opposite to the breakdown seen for the total number of counselling sessions delivered by Childline across all issues affecting young people.
Childline has also seen thematic differences between counselling sessions delivered to boys about sexually coerced online extortion compared to girls. Communication with boys tended to revolve around financial blackmail, whereas girls typically spoke about being pressured to send nude or semi-nude images rather than money.
To tackle this problem Childline has launched a new campaign specifically encouraging boys to contact the service for help and support.
As part of this, social media influencers WhyDee and Kay from The Charvas took part in a challenge with Childline. They were given the task to figure out which one of four social media accounts were real, based on online conversations. However, this challenge came with a twist — all the accounts were fake and secretly managed by BBC 1Xtra’s Richie Brave to highlight just how easy it is to be duped.
During the challenge, The Charvas experience first-hand some of the ways in which sexual extortion scammers attempt to deceive young people. Meanwhile, Richie Brave shares advice about some of the warning signs that young people can look out for to remain safe.
Additional support for children and young people who may have experienced sexually coerced online extortion can also be found via the Report Remove tool that we developed with the Internet Watch Federation. This tool allows young people under the age of 18 to report any sexual images of themselves online and works to have the images removed. Darren Worth, Service Head at Childline, said:
“At Childline, we’re concerned by the amount of young people who received advice and support about sexual extortion, especially boys who make up more than two-thirds of these counselling sessions.
Being targeted by these scams can feel incredibly isolating which is why we’ve launched this new campaign with WhyDee and Kay from The Charvas, to show young people just how sophisticated these cons can be, and that anyone can be duped. We want all young people to know that falling victim to ‘sextortion’ isn’t their fault, and seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
No child should have to cope with a problem like this alone, and Childline is always here to listen and support them whenever they need it. Our Report Remove tool can also help young people take back control if indecent images or videos have been shared online.”
