Taboo on discussing online sexual abuse puts kids at risk, says Suhakam

 

Farah Nini Dusuki calls for more open parent-child communication on online sexual abuse. (Freepik pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: The reluctance of parents to discuss online sexual abuse or exploitation with their children may make them more vulnerable to such dangers, says Farah Nini Dusuki of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam).

The children’s commissioner said children might seek information from external sources in the absence of such discussions.

“I think we need to do more because there is still a taboo in Malaysian culture on talking about subjects like this (online sexual abuse or exploitation),” she said at the International Symposium on the Empowerment of Children’s Commission yesterday.

“Children will often get their information either from school or online because they never talk about it at home. And in this era, I think that’s very dangerous because they will tend to trust others outside of their home.”

Farah said some parents relied on teachers to educate children on such topics, and so felt these topics need not be discussed at home.

She noted that parents had limited awareness about online dangers and the tools available to monitor and protect their children.

Meanwhile, Unicef Malaysia chief of child protection Saskia Blume said the use of AI in generating child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) had made differentiating between AI-generated and real content increasingly difficult.

This, she said, posed a risk to law enforcement officers who might be overwhelmed by their incapacity to distinguish between authentic and AI-generated material.

“The lines are blurred when you have CSEM that involves a real child that is later used to spin off more material without the child being involved. So you don’t know if the child is acutely in danger now or if it is old material,” she said.

According to Unicef’s 2022 Disrupting Harm report, 4% of children aged 12 to 17, or roughly 100,000 children, were exposed to online sexual exploitation and abuse in 2022.

Such instances included being coerced into engaging in sexual activities, having their sexual images shared without consent, or being pressured into sexual acts with promises of money or gifts.

S Selvi, another child protection specialist from Unicef, advocated guidelines for the ethical use of AI.

“It’s important to have consultations and look at what other countries are doing to see how we can have global guidelines to regulate AI,” she said, adding that standardised regulations across countries would be beneficial.

She also advocated for a “safety by design” approach, similar to Australia’s, to counter CSEM by implementing preventive tools directly into devices to prevent such materials from reaching users.

Yesterday, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 would be reviewed next year to take into consideration the challenges posed by technology. - FMT