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One in ten British men have carried out sexual offences against children, according to a major survey.
The study involving 1,500 British men was carried out by Edinburgh University’s Childlight unit, a research centre that investigates the risk of sexual exploitation of children and young people, and the University of New South Wales, Australia.
It found that 10.1 per cent of men admitted they had engaged in child sexual offending, either online or offline.
Almost one in twenty (4.8 per cent) of those surveyed said they had had sexual contact with a child when they themselves were aged 18 or older.
The results also showed that 5 per cent of British men had sexual feelings towards children and had acted upon those feelings, while an additional 7 per cent admitted to having sexual feelings towards children but did not act on them.
The findings have raised concerns that there is a “public health emergency” with a rapid increase of child sex abuse online.
Dr Michael Salter, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales and member of Childlight, said the government needed to take immediate action to protect children.
There have been growing concerns about the increase in online child sex abuse. Last year the US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline received more than 310,000 referrals of suspected incidents of online sexual exploitation of children in the UK.
It is estimated one in four girls and one in five boys have been sexually abused, according to the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse & Neglect (ISPCAN).
Salter said the rise in online child sex offences was part of a global trend over the past two decades, adding that an unregulated online environment was a direct cause of sexual offending against children.
“Sex offenders are using encrypted social media apps at much higher rates than non-offenders. Encrypted apps and privacy services are highly appealing to sex offending. They are in fact a key consumer base for encrypted social media services,” he said.
The Online Safety Bill, which was passed by the House of Lords this week, is designed to protect children online and combat illegal and harmful material.
Salter said such legislation was “very important in terms of holding technology companies accountable and responsible where they provide a conducive environment to the sexual abuse of children”.
He added that the study showed that viewing extreme and deviant online pornography was an indicator of perpetrating child sexual abuse. “Men who are sexually offending against children are watching a lot more online pornography but also the type of content they are consuming is very deviant,” he said. “It is more likely to be violent. It’s more likely to be forceful. It’s more likely to depict, for example, sex with animals.”
Salter said the findings should be a signal to men who are “consuming a lot of pornography, and are consuming a lot of extreme deviant pornography, that they really need to put their hand up and start to access support services because some of those men are going to pose a risk to children”.
The study was carried out using an anonymised online survey in which men were asked questions about their sexual behaviour. Previous research has shown that when asked questions anonymously participants responded truthfully.
The results of the research come before a meeting of child protection professionals in Edinburgh next week for the ISPCAN Congress, during which they will discuss ideas to reduce child trauma.
Pragathi Tummala, the chief executive of ISPCAN, said: “We have to protect and detect issues wherever children live, go to school, go online, play sports, and everywhere in between when they are vulnerable to harm.”