Today marks Cybertip.ca Awareness Day 2016, the fifth annual awareness day of Cybertip.ca, Canada’s tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
It's operated by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
A recent study conducted by the Canadian Centre examined close to 152,000 reports, including 43,762 unique images and videos classified as child pornography.
"Nearly 80 percent of the images assessed by Cybertip.ca depicted very young, pre-pubescent children, under 12 years of age, says a news release from North Bay Police. "One of the most alarming and under-recognized facts is that almost 70 per cent of these images appeared to have been taken within a home setting."
Brenda Quenneville, Executive Director, of the Amelia Rising Sexual Assault Centre says we do see this type of thing in North Bay.
"The things we see around here are sexual acts that are being recorded and then being put online without the consent of the woman involved. We have seen that quite a bit.
"Snapchat is a big one. Guys primarily are under pressure to collect images of girls in their classes or peer group and there's pressure on girls to give photos. The guys want to bee seen as macho and cool and for the girls, it's if you want to be liked and popular to create these images and share."
Quenneville says the streaming service Periscope is also proving to be a problem.
"There are pedophiles all over the world and they can see that young people are online and they can start trying to encourage them with things like 'show me your bra, show me this and show me that. then they send these 'likes' to alert other pedophiles that there is something going on with this particular link."
Police are encouraging area parents, guardians, early childhood educators, teachers, coaches, and other adult members of the community who share in the responsibility of keeping our local children safe, to visit Cybertip.ca, to sign up to receive Cyber Alerts and to get informed.
Resources produced by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection include:
- kidsintheknow.ca, a program that engages students with interactive activities to help build skills that increase their personal safety and reduce their risk of victimization online and in the real world;
- commit2kids.ca, a step-by-step plan to help prevent sexual abuse from happening within child-serving organizations;
- smartstrongsafe.ca, a program designed to help children (grade 5 and 6) understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships and to learn about the importance of respecting personal boundaries.
- teatreetells.ca, a child sexual abuse prevention kit designed to help teachers, early childhood educators and parents of children 4 to 6 years of age learn more about the issue of child sexual abuse and how to better protect children from victimization.
- Safety sheets for tweens and teens, available at cybertip.ca/app/en/internet_safety-for_youth
How to submit a tip
Residents of North Bay or Callander who are looking to report suspicious online activity can do so through Cybertip.ca or by contacting the North Bay Police Service directly at 705-497-5555, or by visiting us in person at 135 Princess Street West, North Bay. For those who wish to remain anonymous, contact Near North Crime Stoppers, by calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or by submitting a tip online at nearnorthcrimestoppers.com.
