Blogs
Take It Down Act: Awaited U.S. legislation to keep kids safe from online sexual exploitation
It specifically targets the distribution and threats of sharing non-consensual intimate images - including AI-generated content - as a federal crime, protecting survivors from further harm and ensuring that there are no loopholes for perpetrators based on location. Over 300 million children under the age of 18 have been affected by online child and sexual exploitation and abuse in the last 12 months. As the home to many of the world’s leading tech companies, the United States holds a unique position of responsibility and influence in shaping online child protection standards. The TAKE IT DOWN Act criminalizes the act of intentionally publishing or threatening to publish non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated content, on online platforms. Violence, which might start in an online sphere, negatively impacts children in the physical world, such as bullying in school or acts of sexual violence physically perpetrated offline. Alarmingly, 1 in 8 children globally have been subjected to online solicitation, and 1 in 8 children have experienced taking, sharing, and or/exposure to sexual images and videos in the last 12 months. Online sexual violence can have serious emotional, health, and psychosocial impacts on children and youth, including into adulthood. I was a victim of technology-assisted child sexual abuse when I was 13 … It's been 21 years since my abuse, and I still live in fear of those images.
From silence to leadership: how National Survivor Councils can drive prevention, healing and justice
Survivors have firsthand experience and insights into the complexities, challenges, and needs of those who have suffered from childhood sexual violence. Through the creation of National Survivor Councils (NSCs), governments are better equipped to effectively address violence against children, especially childhood sexual violence, while ensuring that survivors play a central role in all such efforts. These councils don’t just give feedback; they help shape the actual policies that impact how we prevent and respond to childhood sexual violence. Having a council of survivors of child sexual violence substantively included in policy-making processes guarantees that the voices, perspectives, and expertise of those directly affected are heard, valued, and integrated into resulting policies and decisions. By actively involving survivors, governments can develop more informed, empathetic, and effective responses to the fight against child sexual violence. The Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues was established by the German Government in 2010 as a political hub for survivors, practitioners, researchers, and lawmakers working on child protection. The first Survivor Council at the Commissioner’s Office was formed in March 2015 to ensure that survivors' experiences and expertise are heard at the highest political level and engaged in policy-making processes related to childhood sexual violence in the country. In 2025, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, the two German parliamentary chambers, both passed a law making the Independent Commissioner, the Independent Inquiry and the German Survivor Council statutory, making sexual violence against children and adolescents something that cannot be ignored in the political sphere anymore. For instance, under the current three-party coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the council had input into the continuation of the Child Sexual Abuse Fund (Fonds Sexueller Missbrauch) – a low-threshold support system for survivors of intrafamilial child sexual abuse – along with the Supplementary Aid System (Ergänzende Hilfesystem) – a support system for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. The Council aims to ensure childhood sexual violence programs and funding address survivors' needs by fostering collaboration between survivors, community organizations, and the government. The G7, which will take place in Canada in June 2025, is uniquely positioned to accelerate the global adoption of National Survivor Councils, setting international standards for survivor-centered approaches to ending childhood sexual violence.
The case for the Barnahus Model: Upholding children's rights to end childhood sexual violence
After offering my sincere congratulations to the Irish Government for their initiative to support child victims and witnesses of crime, I just had one question for them: “What was the point?” Why had they gone to such lengths? If you asked the Magistrate from Portugal “What is the point of a Barnahus?” You’d get a slightly different answer than if you asked the director of the Child Advocacy Centre in Alabama. Multidisciplinary interagency response models are a beautiful idea, bringing all the crucial aspects of the process to the child victim under one roof, but each agency, be it medical, law enforcement, judiciary, therapeutic, are all still just there to carefully extract, as sensitively as possible, whatever their department needs from the child. Police stations are for criminals - they are no place for a child. Courtrooms are for lawyers - they are no place for a child. For a growing number of child victims, there is progress. From the moment a child enters the Barnahus they can sense the warm supportive atmosphere of safety and dignity. The child feels cared for, and so they begin to learn that they have value in this world, because they witness that they are someone worth fighting for. The interview process happens only once, and the child feels believed. For every child that comes through a Barnahus door, something they could not even have imagined has already been done to them. Essentially, it doesn't really matter what colour we paint the walls, or how many cosy sofas we install, there is no part of this process that a child finds “friendly”. It’s taken me a few decades but I can really see it now, the point of a Barnahus, and it’s purely a matter of rights. I mean it’s up to us , the adults, every single person reading this, to do everything within our power to see children’s rights are upheld and a key tool in this fight is Barnahus, because it is the most effective way to help these wounded little ones find the way back to their path, towards the future that was stolen from them.
Una lucha de 25 años por la justicia: Las victorias históricas de Jose Enrique Escardó Steck para los sobrevivientes e infancias en Perú
Durante 25 años, Jose Enrique Escardó Steck (JEES) ha luchado por la justicia, no solo para él, sino para innumerables sobrevivientes de abuso en Perú y Latinoamérica. La decisión del pontífice llegó después de una investigación iniciada en julio del 2023 sobre abusos sexuales, físicos y psicológicos, así como sobre mala gestión financiera dentro del SCV, una organización profundamente arraigada en los círculos conservadores de élite en Perú. Para Escardó, quien fue el primero en denunciar estos abusos a través de una serie de seis artículos en la revista peruana Gente en el año 2000, este momento fue tanto surrealista como profundamente significativo. Su testimonio fue clave en la histórica recomendación del CRC el 31 de enero: "Perú debe establecer una investigación estatal formal e independiente sobre los abusos sexuales infantiles dentro de la Iglesia Católica. Este es un momento crucial, no solo para Perú, sino para el movimiento global que busca hacer responsables a las instituciones por los abusos contra la niñez.
A 25-Year fight for justice: Jose Enrique Escardó Steck’s landmark victories for survivors and children in Peru
For 25 years, Jose Enrique Escardó Steck (JEES) has been fighting for justice—not just for himself, but for countless survivors of abuse in Peru and Latin America. His audience with Pope Francis was a moment of validation—not just for him, but for all survivors and allies who have joined JEES in all these years and fought for justice despite systemic silence and repression. His testimony played a key role in the CRC’s historic recommendation on January 31: "Peru must establish a formal, independent State-led inquiry into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. This is a landmark moment—not just for Peru, but for the global movement to hold institutions accountable for child abuse. It sets a precedent for government responsibility in ensuring justice for survivors, rather than leaving the process solely in the hands of the Church.
Building a Safer Digital Future for Kids: The Heat Initiative Story
For us, that meant putting pressure on companies that enable and profit off of child sexual abuse, starting with Apple. As we surveyed the online child safety space, we saw an opportunity to build a new brand of activism – one that borrowed from the playbook of other successful movements and leveraged a corporate campaign model to shift the ways Big Tech approaches child safety. Now, child users who face unsafe or unwanted sexual interactions in iMessage can get help more easily. Apple is facing a billion-dollar lawsuit that claims the company didn't do enough to stop child sexual abuse material from being stored on iCloud. The plaintiffs are survivors of child sexual abuse whose abuse was recorded and shared online, spreading across both the dark web and everyday platforms. In March of 2024, our team asked Marsh Law, a 17-year-old firm that focuses on representing victims of child sexual abuse, if it could bring a suit against Apple.
We all have a role to play in ending childhood sexual violence
Child sexual abuse is a silent epidemic that affects millions of children across the globe. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 7 boys will experience some form of sexual violence before their 18th birthday. Survivors are at significantly higher risk of physical and mental health challenges, with many struggling to survive beyond the age of 50 due to chronic illnesses, depression, or, tragically, suicide.
Breaking the silence: a survivor’s fight for collective transformation
One of the most painful aspects of this crime is that victims and survivors carry shame and guilt, partly because the abuser is often someone close to you, someone in whom you place your trust.