Context: Recently, WeProtect Global Alliance published Global Threat Assessment Report 2021, which claims that COVID-19 had contributed to a significant spike in child sexual exploitation and abuse online.
Key Points

• Child sexual exploitation and online abuse have reached their highest level in the last two years, globally.
• Child sexual abuse a chronically underfunded issue and COVID-19 has created the perfect conditions that fuelled a rise in child sexual exploitation and abuse across the globe.
• As per the report, the rise in child ‘self-generated’ sexual material is another trend that challenges the existing response.
• 77% increase in child ‘self-generated’ sexual material from 2019 to 2020.
• As per the global study of childhood experiences of more than 5,000 young adults (aged 18 to 20) across 54 countries.
• 54% of the respondents had experienced at least one online sexual harm incident during childhood.
• 34% had been asked to do something sexually explicit online they were uncomfortable with during their childhood.
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) indicated a 106% increase in reports of suspected child sexual exploitation globally.
• During the COVID-19 lockdown in India, there was a 95% rise in searches for child sexual abuse material.

About WeProtect Global Alliance

• Aim: To show how the global response to child sexual exploitation and abuse online needs a new approach.

About WeProtect Global Alliance

• It is a global movement of people and organizations composed of more than 200 governments, private sector companies, and civil society organizations working together to transform the global response to child sexual exploitation and abuse online.
• The alliance brings together people and organizations with the knowledge, experience, and influence to make the digital world safer for children.
• The Alliance is a public-private partnership.
• It is dedicated to putting online-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse on the global agenda and mobilizing a worldwide campaign to end it.

Key facts about Child Exploitation in India

• The number of child labourers in India is 10.1 million of which 5.6 million are boys and 4.5 million are girls.
• In India child labourers can be found in a variety of industries: in brick kilns, carpet weaving, garment making, domestic service, food and refreshment services (such as tea stalls), agriculture, fisheries and mining.
• Child labour and exploitation in India are the result of  many factors, including poverty, social norms condoning them, lack of decent work opportunities for adults and adolescents, migration and emergencies.

Reasons for the Child Exploitation in India

• Poverty is the main driving cause of child exploitation in India: The Child need to provide a necessary income contribution to one’s household or out of an obligation to fund a family debt, especially considering the susceptibility of Indian families to enter poverty.
• A lack of quality education also causes children particularly girls to turn to work: Girls are two times more likely to take on domestic jobs like cleaning, cooking and general housekeeping if out of school.
• Informal sector has little to no regulation on the production of goods. The informal sector still constitutes 90 percent of the workforce in the country, with majority of child laborers.

Recommendations to stop child exploitation in India
Spread awareness

• Parental awareness of the evils of child labor can prevent disruption in schooling and pushing of children into labor.
• Lack of understanding on the part of parents creates situations where traffickers prey upon children and many trafficked children end up in child labor.

More stringent laws and effective implementation

• Policymaking is essential to long lasting social change, and lobbying for better laws involves demonstrating how change can bring considerable benefit.

Sending more children to school

• India has the world’s largest educational system, yet faces the hurdles of low literacy, due to low enrolment. Organisations like Save the Children execute several initiatives to boost children’s enrolment in schools.
• The organisation maps out-of-school children and those who are at risk of dropping out and ensures that they enter into the fold of education.