Online Child abuse; a new challenge to law enforcement agents

The advancement in technology has brought with it a new phenomenon of crime - online child sexual abuse and exploitation where perpetrators are invading cyberspace to sexually abuse children through creating content of an indecent nature.

A new breed of offences previously unheard of like revenge pornography, cyber-bullying, sexting among others are now common and this has presented challenges to the law enforcement.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police, through the help of a development partner, Save the Children International, have made inroads in trying to curtail the increasing cases of Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation.

Recently, Save the Children International hosted an Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Workshop at Holiday Inn in Harare. The workshop was attended by Victim Friendly Unit (VFU) Officers from 10 stations in Harare, their district coordinators and Interpol representative.

The workshop was meant to share various experiences that investigators of online child sexual abuse encountered at their police stations following the launch of the pilot programme on online child safety last year.

The pilot project followed the donation of computers and laptops to the Victim Friendly Unit and this also included monthly internet subscriptions to VFU Harare District and 10 selected stations. Save the Children also facilitated the training of 46 police officers drawn from Harare on the investigation of Online Sexual abuse and exploitation.

In an interview, the workshop coordinator Superintendent Francis Mutema said the workshop also aided in helping officers to understand how they can carry out their investigations as well as draw lessons from what the investigators have been seeing since the programme was launched.

Gloria Nyahuma the Program Manager Child Protection and Child Right Governance for Save the Children International said ZRP VFU as the primary stakeholder need to identify and trace vulnerabilities that children face while online. Ever since their partnership, the police have been assisted in a big way in identifying these crimes.

Speaking at the official opening of the workshop, Senior Staff Officer Victim Friendly Unit, Assistant Commissioner Dadela Bonongwe said that the police’s responsibility in this project was to identify the culprits.

“One of our key responsibilities as the police in this project is to monitor the internet with a view to identifying any child sexual abuse material involving children from Zimbabwe and initiating investigations thereof. On the preventive side, we have a responsibility to carry out public education awareness campaigns in schools,” she said.

She also highlighted that Save the Children International has funded the production of a Police Pocket Book on Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation which is a critical resource to the police as they go about policing this crime.

Interpol has also a part to play in the investigation of online child abuse as they have a database that captures information from social media where child abuse is taking place. They also work with other international organisations which give them tip lines wherever the crime is being committed. As such, investigators should always make use of this database.

Meanwhile, participants at the workshop benefited immensely from the interaction.

“We have learnt that children as young as 13 and 15 are involved in these crimes sending nude pictures of their girlfriends after breaking up, cyberbullying and other crimes and parents must monitor what their children do online especially after buying them gifts of cell phones and laptops,” said one of the participants, Inspector Estina Sengwe