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To cite this article: Jennifer Martin & Andrea Slane (2015) Child Sexual Abuse
Images Online: Confronting the Problem, Child & Youth Services, 36:4, 261-266, DOI:
10.1080/0145935X.2015.1092828
Guest Editorial
Child Sexual Abuse Images Online:
Confronting the Problem
JENNIFER MARTIN
School of Child & Youth Care, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ANDREA SLANE
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
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Address correspondence to Dr. Jennifer Martin, School of Child & Youth Care, Ryerson
University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada or Dr. Andrea Slane, University
of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, ON, Canada L1H 7K4.
E-mail: jjmartin@ryerson.ca or andrea.slane@uoit.ca
261
262 Guest Editorial
Technology has had a profound effect on child sexual abuse and exploita-
tion; particularly the production, distribution, viewing, and collection of child
sexual abuse images online (CSAIO). Our core understanding of CSAIO
involves the conventional (non-Internet related) sexual abuse of a child
that is digitally recorded and distributed online. However, some contribu-
tors to this Issue use a broader understanding of CSAIO, which includes
images produced online (e.g., captured screenshots during a chat) and
images produced by youth themselves. Two defining features of CSAIO,
regardless of how broad the conceptualization, are their online accessibility
and potential permanence. The millions of abuse images currently online
are not hard to access by those with a sexual interest in children, and it is
possible for CSAIO to be accessed online accidentally. Although attempts are
being made in many countries to block websites or remove content, once
online, an image can exist out of the subjects control for the remainder of
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eager to further objectify and consume them; the children in these images
are not masters of their own destiny in any sense. The tendency to want
to focus on sexting highlights the need for legal and clinical scholars and
practitioners to consider differences and similarities between the experiences
of teens and younger children, and the different contexts in which sexual
images are taken and distributed.
Martins article introduces this Special Issue by providing a unique con-
ceptual model of CSAIO that considers the relationship between offline and
online child sexual abuse and illustrates the complexity of possible harms
done to children made the subject of CSAIO. These conceptualizations
challenge existing trauma treatment modalities and call for research to
expand trauma frameworks to move beyond symptom management and
narrow temporal assumptions specifically for CSAIO. In Slanes contribution,
the legal harms recognized as arising from simple possession and viewing
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of sexual images of young people are distinguished from the harms arising
from the creation and distribution of a permanent record of abuse. These
separate conceptualizations are intended to create a space for the possibil-
ity of shared harms that could arise both for victims of core CSAIO (where
the images are records of sexual abuse) and for victims of non-consensual
distribution (where the images were produced in a non-abusive context).
Quayles contribution further highlights the importance of coercion in distin-
guishing between harmful situations where teens self-produce sexual images
and those that may not be harmful. von Weilers contribution reviews studies
she was involved in that examined CSAIO as a multi-faceted phenomenon,
including the recommendation that practitioners need to understand why
young people take risks online in order to provide appropriate support.
This Special Issue broadens our understanding of the complex nature
of child sexual abuse images online, particularly the views expressed to-
wards conceptualizing and understanding the harms done to children made
the subjects of the abuse images. Specifically, this special issue draws atten-
tion to the need to clarify our understanding of the many facets of victims
experiences and the challenges that practitioners and investigators face, as
addressed by Sinclair in her contribution. We need sustained focus on iden-
tifying and addressing the knowledge gaps and barriers to cross-sectoral
responses to CSAIO. While many key stakeholders are working to help chil-
dren and protect them from online sexual abuse and exploitation, the full
potential of their wealth of knowledge and ideas can only be realized if they
are able to share their wisdom, research, experiences, and best practices
together. A specific aim of the symposium, therefore, was to develop part-
nerships for collaborative work and research across sectors regarding best
practices in response to child sexual abuse images online. We are pleased
to have secured further funding from SSHRC to advance those partnerships
and improve upon knowledge exchange between the sectors, to which all of
the contributors to this Special Issue will contribute. Ultimately, our primary
266 Guest Editorial
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Linn Clark for excellent editing of this Special Issue.
REFERENCES
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