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CISC National Monitored Issues
Sexual Exploitation of Children (SEOC)
Highlights
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National Overview
Canada’s commitment to investigate and prosecute SEOC is within the context of its support to the G8 Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet. Additional financial support to increase law enforcement’s capacity to investigate those criminal offences has been given to the RCMP-led National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre (NCECC). The NCECC is a point of contact for complaints, particularly those relating to child pornography over the Internet, and their dissemination to relevant law enforcement agencies for investigation. The NCECC collaborates with various government departments, international law enforcement agencies and other organizations dedicated to protecting children.
Canada has implemented a number of legislative measures to combat SEOC, including those relating to child sex tourism, child prostitution, possession of child pornography and Internet luring of children.
In many provinces, law enforcement has recognized the need to combat SEOC from an integrated perspective. Integrated Child Exploitation Units have been established in several provinces and more are expected. Manitoba’s Integrated Child Exploitation Unit and the Cybertip.ca initiative, an on-line reporting mechanism for Internet-based child pornography and other forms of child sexual exploitation, serve as examples of effective multi-agency responses. These measures aim to alleviate the challenges facing law enforcement in its efforts to combat SEOC. For instance, the increasing amount of child pornography on the Internet has led to a large number of potential investigations for law enforcement. Moreover, the involvement of numerous jurisdictions nationally and internationally complicates investigations.
Technological advances, specifically the Internet and increased computer storage capacities, including external storage devices (i.e., portable hard drives, hand-held devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs)), have facilitated the increased availability of child pornography in Canada and internationally, as well as developed the advertisement of child sex tourism destinations. As a result, criminal networks have emerged on-line in order to share child pornography, learn from other collectors of child pornography how to avoid detection from law enforcement, learn how to acquire more images, and how to produce child pornography. Increasingly, some Internet based child pornography networks operate fee-based web sites. These web sites generate profit for the web site operators while collectors of child pornography continue to increase the size of their collections.
Child prostitution across the country is most frequently reported in larger urban areas, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver; however, its presence has also been reported in other areas of British Columbia, as well as Saskatchewan, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Child prostitution has been linked to some street gangs. Children involved in prostitution range in age from 10 to 18, while the average age is often 14, the age of consent in Canada.
Outlook
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