Due to the boom that various social networks have received, and the facilities promoted by the main instant messaging platforms, the exchange of photos has become a common practice among young people over 20 years of age.
Despite the privacy risks that are implicit in the exchange of photographs (especially those with sexual content) if the person agrees to be part of this, there is no law that penalizes the consequences. But when we talk about minors participating in this activity, the laws change drastically in terms of protecting the child or adolescent.
Legal Aspects of Sexting in Minors
Let’s start from the point where a minor is not in the capacity to face with maturity any type of encounter related to sexuality. Therefore, exposing them prematurely (either directly or indirectly) would reflect negatively on their development as persons. To condemn it, some of its sentences are classified as follows:
- Production of child pornography: Between 10 and 20 years in prison.
- Possession of sexual content (from messages to photos and videos) of minors: Maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
- Distribution of child pornography: Between 5 and 20 years in prison.
As for Sexting, an adult can easily incur these three sanctions by promoting the dissemination of sexual content in minors.
Figures that Alarm; The Number of People Participating in the Minors Photographs Trade
A journalistic study carried out by the BBC provided shocking data regarding child pornography, provided by a former administrator of a website dedicated to the purchase and sale of intimate photos of minors. As reported by the anonymity, the page had a total of 40,000 active users and an average traffic of 500 visitors per second. Counting on a database superior to 12Gb, the exposed portfolio in this website had between 1000 and 1500 intimate photographs of minors. This information is even more alarming when it is possible to access data from child pornography dissemination forums, with more than 10,000 consumers and approximately ”2000 content producers”.
And with this we speak of a single web portal, because in 2014 the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children accounted for a total of 112 million files that contained photographs or videos of sexual abuse in minors.
All this allows us to affirm that the problem is more serious than it seems, and that the risk of a child being a victim of sexual harassment through electronic means is just around the corner.
How to Detect It Before It’s Too Late?
Although no parent would like to be in a circumstance like that, you should be prepared to recognize when you can take legal action if your minor children have been victims of Sexting. But before that, how can you get to know if your child is a victim? The answer is simple. Monitor them 24/7 using the Android parental control app such as FamilyTime. With this app in hand parents can:
- Mirror contact book of kids
- Monitor SMS history to see who do they talk to and what do they talk about
- Check call logs
- Watchlist shady contacts to get notified if the connection is established between your child and the watchlisted contact either through SMS or call.
- Schedule auto screen locks for a specific time interval.
- Remotely lock their device at any time.
And much more. To try FamilyTime app for free, click the button given below.