Special Report:

What More Needs to be Done—Recommendations

“It made no difference to me whether the abuser was under the covers or behind the lens or behind the computer. I was there because they wanted to be amused by the corruption and degradation of me.”

–Shy Keenan, former victim and a children’s rights advocate

Despite its past successes, Canada has much more to do.

There are a number of sizable gaps where children are falling through the cracks and offenders are gaining momentum. We must move to address these gaps now, before we fall too far behind.

Specifically, we must be honest about the horror of the situation and address it as such. We need to reconsider which has higher value: an offender’s right to anonymity or the real harm being done to children. We need to give authorities the tools they need to identify these children and rescue them and then, once the victims are found, we need to have the resources and expertise in place to properly care for these children and to help them heal. Finally, we need to hold those that share and distribute child sexual abuse images accountable for their role and find meaningful ways to ensure the private sector is part of the solution.

While the issue is enormous, this report presents nine practical and feasible recommendations to address the issue of child sexual exploitation as it pertains to the Internet.