Cambridge: Tackling Child Pornography

25 June 2012, 06:00

More than 41,000 reports of suspected criminal content were made to the Cambridge based Internet Watch Foundation last year.

The IWF found more than 13,100 of these had images or videos of children being sexually abused. 

They are now looking to work more internationally as the majority of these images, over 12,900 were hosted abroad with three quarter of children in them appearing to be 10 years old or under.

They now plan to share their skills and expertise with other countries and to create more partnerships overseas. 

In the UK any child sexual abuse content is usually removed within 60 minutes. 

Susie Hargreaves, IWF Chief Executive, said: 'While we continue to excel at tackling online child sexual abuse content in the UK, the next three years will increasingly focus on sharing our expertise and skills internationally. 

'From working closely with the online industry, we've reduced UK-hosted child sexual abuse content to less than 1% compared to 18% in 1997.

'We also have a great many partnerships with other charities, police, other INHOPE hotlines and child protection and technology experts all over the world and we feel it's our duty and the right time to have a closer focus on the international dimension.'