Study finds 1 in 5 children have been sexually solicited on the Web

MARY HARGROVE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Millions of children were solicited for sex or exposed to graphic sexual photographs on the Internet in 1999, according to a national study.
One in five children in the study received a sexual solicitation and one in 33 was aggressively solicited for sex, meaning the child was asked to meet with a person soliciting sex, was called or received mail, money or gifts.
"Large numbers of young people are encountering sexual solicitation they did not want, sexual material they did not seek, and people who threatened and harassed them in a variety of ways," stated the authors of Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth.
"If even some small percentage of these encounters results in offline sexual assault or illegal sexual contact -- it would amount to several thousand incidents," wrote Dr. David Finkelhor, one of the authors of the study released in June 2000.
"The youths encounter a substantial quality of offensive episodes, some of which are distressing and most of which are unreported," the report concluded. "The Internet has a seamier side that young people seem to be encountering with great frequency."
Congress directed the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to commission a study in 1999 to examine what risks youths face online. The center serves as a clearinghouse for information from the public. Tips are forwarded to state or local law enforcement officials as well as federal agencies. Reports to the center are available online to the FBI, U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Services.
Finkelhor and colleagues Kimberly Mitchell and Janis Wolak of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center conducted the research. They hired a professional interviewing firm to talk to children and their parents by phone across the country.

SEXUAL SOLICITATIONS
The report's authors surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,501 youths ages 10-17 between August 1999 and February 2000.
Nearly 24 million children ages 10-17 used the Internet regularly in 1999.
Based on their results, Mitchell said, the researchers estimated that 4.5 million children nationwide are sexually solicited each year.
"We have no doubt the numbers are in the millions," she said.
Girls were targeted for sexual solicitations almost twice as much as boys. However, researchers were surprised at the large number of boys -- 34 percent -- who were propositioned.
In addition, 22 percent of children who were sexually solicited were 10 to 13 years old.
"This younger group was disproportionately distressed ... suggesting that younger youth have a harder time shrugging off such solicitations,'' the report stated. The younger children experienced "high levels of upset and fear" and "stress responses and even depressive symptoms."
"They were extremely upset or afraid as a direct result of this happening," Mitchell said.
However, many of the older children said they shrugged it off.
A number of the sexual solicitations were propositions for cybersex -- a form of fantasy sex in which participants describe or "perform" sexual acts while "talking" on the Internet.
For example:
A 12-year-old girl said people told her sexual things they were doing and asked her to play with herself.
A 13-year-old boy said a man sent him a drawing of a man having sex with a dog.
A 13-year-old girl said a man sent her a message asking for her measurements and other questions about what she looked like.
A 16-year-old girl said a man talked to her about sexual things he wanted to do to her and suggested places to meet her.
In 70 percent of the incidents, the children were at home when they were solicited.
In 49 percent of the incidents, the children did not tell anyone. Only 10 percent told a teacher, an Internet service provider or law enforcement agency.
Why did they keep it a secret?
"Many probably did not know or doubted that anything could be done," the report stated. "But some of it may reflect embarrassment or shame because the youth may have believed they had gone to places on the Internet that parents, law enforcement officials or even friends would disapprove of.
"Some may have been concerned that their access to the Internet would be restricted if they told a parent."
Twelve percent of the children writing to strangers on the Internet admitted that they had sent their picture, and 7 percent had willingly talked about sex online with someone they did not know.
"The interesting thing is that kids are not surprised at the numbers of sexual encounters on the Internet. They tell us that sexual solicitations happen much more than our report indicates," Mitchell said. "But parents are shocked that it happens as often as we reported."

EXPOSURE TO SEXUAL MATERIAL
Sometimes, through innocent misspellings or opening e-mails from strangers, 25 percent of children in the survey found pornographic Web sites or pictures.
Researchers believe that translates to 5.9 million children nationwide having had similar experiences.
Some "heavy-duty imagery" is incredibly easy to stumble upon, the report stated.
"Some children saw adult and child pornography, bestiality or sex that included violence," Mitchell said. "It was not just a picture of a naked woman. It's pretty obscene."
More than 60 percent of unwanted sexual pictures were found by children 15 years or older. Seven percent of those pictures were seen by children 11 and 12 years old.
Some examples:
An 11-year-old boy and a friend were searching for game sites. They typed in "fun com" and a pornography site came up.
A 15-year-old boy came across a bestiality site while he was writing a paper about wolves for school.
A 13-year-old boy who loved wrestling got an e-mail with a subject line that said it was about wrestling. It contained pornography.
A 12-year-old girl opened a "free Beanie Babies" e-mail and found pictures of naked people.
Trying to leave a pornographic site can be difficult. "In some sites, the exit buttons take a viewer into other sexually explicit sites," the report stated. "This happened in one-third of the distressing incidents encountered while surfing the Internet."
In 17 percent of all incidents involving unwanted sexual pictures, the children said they knew the site was X-rated before they opened it.
More than two-thirds of those pictures were discovered while the children were on the computer at their homes. Parents were told in 50 percent of the cases.
One-third of the families surveyed used filters or blocking software or access control offered by an Internet provider. Another 5 percent had used filters or blocking software during the past year and had discontinued them.
The report concluded:
Wholesale solicitation for sex on the Internet occurs daily to children, some of whom are especially vulnerable through lack of knowledge, neediness, disability or poor judgment.
"Substantial numbers of young people do experience distress because of Internet encounters. And they are not getting help," the report concluded. "We need to train mental-health, school and family counselors about these new Internet hazards."
Only 10 percent of parents or guardians knew where to report problems with unwanted sexual solicitations or pornography over the Internet.
To obtain a full copy of this report or to report missing or exploited children, contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., at 1 (800) 843-5678 or download the report from its Web site at www.missingkids.com

This article was published on Monday, January 8, 2001

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