Online child abuse moving to Skype, Bitcoin: Europol, Gov't drafts plan to fight child sacrifice

Online child abuse moving to Skype, Bitcoin: Europol
February 24, 2015

Like using legitimate, mainstream chat sites to broadcast the abuse, payment using virtual currencies such as Bitcoin also makes the criminals harder to trace than if they were taking credit card payments

Hi-tech criminals are increasingly selling live streams of child sex over legitimate chat sites and apps such as Skype for hard-to-trace virtual currencies like Bitcoin, Europe's policing agency warned on Tuesday.

"Criminals that sexually exploit children online are becoming more entrepreneurial with technological developments and are profiting financially," Europol said in a special report on commercial sexual exploitation of children online.

Compiled by Europol's EC3 cybercrime centre, together with Eurojust, NGOs, credit card and online giants such as Google and Microsoft, the report paints a disturbing picture of rising online child abuse.

The sale of child abuse live streams over legitimate chat sites or video chat apps is much harder to trace than when the abuse is sold from a website.

"The research shows that the live streaming of abuse for payment is no longer an emerging trend but an established reality," the report said.

Criminal gangs recruit disadvantaged children or their own children for the abuse.

"These persons offer homeless children or children from their own family for the sexual abuse by individuals, live in front of a camera, in the European Union or developing countries, for financial gain," the report said.

Filippino police recently busted a paedophile ring that streamed live sex involving children as young as six, the report said....
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-online-child-abuse-skype-bitcoin.html


Gov't drafts plan to fight child sacrifice
Publish Date: Feb 24, 2015

By Jacquiline Emodek

THE ministry of Gender, labour and social development with support from UNICEF, Makerere University, World Vision, Plan Uganda and ANPPCAN Ugandan Chapter have drafted the National Action Plan to end child sacrifice and child mutilation.

The plan complements the Trafficking in Persons Act (2009) and the Children Act 59 (2000) which promote the protection of rights of children in Uganda.

Speaking during the symposium towards eliminating child sacrifice and the mutilation of children in Uganda on Monday at Hotel Africana, Sulaiman Madada the state minister for the elderly and disabled said that the plan is a step towards curbing the vice that is compromising the protection of children.

Police records and media reports indicate that cases of child sacrifice and the mutilation of children linked to ritual murders have increased since 2006.... http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/665213-gov-t-drafts-plan-to-fight-child-sacrifice.html