British child sex abuse webpages cut

A staggering 87,000 webpages filled with images of child sexual abuse have been removed from cyberspace thanks to the work of one pioneering British organisation.

The Internet Watch Foundation celebrates its 15th anniversary on December 1 and to mark today's IWF Awareness Day, it has revealed the shocking statistic, which shows how successful it has been in the past decade-and-a-half.

The reporting system was set up so that anyone who inadvertently stumbled upon images of child sexual abuse could feel safe to report it to the authorities. During its 15-year lifetime, the IWF has looked at almost 370,000 webpages.

If a website is found to contain criminal images, the IWF is able to work with Internet Service Providers to have the offending pages removed quickly. It can then liaise with the police and other authorities so they can try and track down those behind it.

Back in 1997, 18% of the world's child sexual abuse content was hosted in the UK. It is in part thanks to the IWF's work that by 2003, it was less than 1%. The swift takedown system run by the organisation and its members from all areas of the online world contributed to this success.

The figures also show that 45% of the webpages removed by its work featured images of children ages 10 and under. This included 2% featuring babies and toddlers under two. Between 2007 and 2010, this figure stood at 73.5%, showing a marked rise in such disturbing content being available in cyberspace.

Since its work began, the IWF also found 40% of the global child sexual abuse content it has reported to members and the authorities involved the rape and sexual torture of children.

“To assess more than 370,000 webpages is incredible and the IWF is proud to have played its part nationally and internationally to remove images of child sexual abuse,” said IWF Chief Executive Susie Hargreaves.

“Although we’ve had tremendous success domestically, child sexual abuse content on the internet is a problem the IWF and the industry are eager to tackle wherever it is hosted.

The independent self-regulatory body, which has more than 100 members, was set up and funded by the online industry and the EU. 

Ms Hargreaves added: "Preventing the revictimisation of those children and protecting the public from stumbling across this horrific content is our priority.

"Through working with the online industry and our partners we’ve been able to grow and adapt in order to meet this challenge and we will continue to adapt to tackle this global problem."

The IWF also works to tackle UK-hosted extreme adult pornography and non-photographic images of child sexual abuse such as computer-generated graphics.

But despite an offer of anonymity to those reporting content, the IWF reports that 54% chose to leave their contact details in a bid to receive feedback on whether what they have found is unlawful.

When a report is made, a team of specialist analysts - who have an exemption within the law to enable them to view potentially criminal content - assesses it.

It is an offence under the Protection of Children Act 1978 (as amended in the Sexual Offences Act 2003) to take, make, permit to be taken, distribute, show, possess with intent to distribute, or advertise indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children under the age of 18.

Yahoo! UK is a member of the Internet Watch Foundation and for more information or to report a website visit www.iwf.org.uk.