Don’t look away
Don’t look away!
The International Labour Organization estimates that 1.2 million children are victims of sexual exploitation every year. However, reliable data is still difficult to find. No country is immune to this crime. When you suspect child sexual exploitation or abuse in your own country, you can contact relevant local authorities or hotline. When you are travelling abroad and you are not familiar with reporting mechanisms in foreign country, this international reporting platform helps you to report suspicious situations at the right authorities.
The International Labour Organization estimates that 1.2 million children are victims of sexual exploitation every year. When you suspect child sexual exploitation or abuse in your own country, you can contact relevant local authorities or hotline. When you are travelling abroad and you are not familiar with reporting mechanisms in foreign country, this international reporting platform helps you to report suspicious situations at the right authorities.
Keep children safe and report suspected child sexual abuse and exploitation!
Choose a country
Choose the country where you live and/or where the suspicious situation has taken place. The police in your country are connected to Europol/Interpol and law enforcement in other countries. Always report to your national police when you know that the suspect is from your country. When neither of the countries is on the list, please send as much concrete information as possible about the suspicious situation you observed. This includes suspect(s), victim(s), location and time.
Choose the country where you live and/or where the suspicious situation has taken place. The police in your country are connected to Europol/Interpol and law enforcement in other countries. Always report to your national police when you know that the suspect is from your country. When neither of the countries is on the list, please send as much concrete information as possible about the suspicious situation you observed. This includes suspect(s), victim(s), location and time. Reporting form
Other relevant hotlines
Child Helpline International can help you find the contact details of child helpline services in many countries where you can confidentially seek further assistance.
Reporting suspected child sexual abuse images or videos, including a sexually explicit image of a child. Hotlines in 42 countries.
Report sexual exploitation of children… Even when travelling
How to react?
-
01
Witness
You witness a situation, which makes you suspect that a child is being sexually exploited. Observe carefully and write down concrete details about the situation. Keep in mind: What, Who, Where and When.
-
02
Report
Find the country where you live or where the suspicious situation took place at www.dontlookaway.report. If neither of the countries is there, fill in the reporting form
-
03
Hotline
The hotline forwards the report to the authorities responsible for investigating sexual crimes and travelling child sex offenders. Reporting can be done anonymously, but the success rate is much higher when the police can contact you to ask futher questions, if needed. You can choose to have direct contact with the police, or through the hotline when you want to stay anonymous.
-
04
Police
Law enforcement will review and file the reported information. When the information is determined to be concrete and valid, it can lead for further investigation and contact with police in other countries.
-
05
Succes
Success is dependent on the level of concrete information provided and non-anonymous reporting. One report can expose an entire network of child sex offenders, or an offender that has been abusing children for many years.
Success Stories
In 2020, a 53-year-old man was arrested in the Netherlands. The man is said to have sexually assaulted at least 16 child victims in the Philippines over a period of more than 20 years.
In 2019, a 70-year-old Dutch man was arrested at Schiphol Airport for abuse of a minor in Nepal following a report to the hotline. After a search in his home, footage of child sexual abuse was found.
If you suspect a case of sexual exploitation of children, don’t look away; report it! Let’s act together to create a world where children are protected from sexual exploitation.
What can you report?
The sexual exploitation of children includes exploitation in prostitution, sale and trafficking for sexual purposes, online child sexual exploitation, some forms of early and forced marriages and sexual exploitation in the context of travel and tourism. Perpetrators exploit children and young people by offering them gifts, drugs, money, shelter, food, promises of better status or affection in exchange for sexual activities. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, every person below the age of 18 is a child and has the right to be protected against all forms of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
Common sense is often the best guide for recognizing sexual exploitation of a child. Trust your gut feeling when you see a situation you feel is inappropriate.
Perpetrators exploit children and young people by offering them gifts, drugs, money, shelter, food, promises of better status or affection in exchange for sexual activities. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, every person below the age of 18 is a child and has the right to be protected against all forms of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
Common sense is often the best guide for recognizing sexual exploitation of a child. Trust your gut feeling when you see a situation you feel is inappropriate.
Good to know
- Sexual exploitation of children takes place in every country
- A child is any person below 18 years of age
- Girls and boys can be victims of sexual exploitation
- Sexual contact between an adult and a child is a crime, no matter the country or the culture
- Both men and women can be perpetrators
- Child sex offenders can be convicted in their country of origin and abroad
Examples of suspicious situations
- An adult touches a child inappropriately at the pool, beach, restaurant, bar or hotel
- A child is dancing semi-naked in front of adults
- Someone offers a child or young person for sexual services
- Someone is looking for sexual services from children or young people
- A hotel or organization turns a blind eye or facilitates child sexual exploitation on its premises or through other companies
- An adult talks about their sexual experience with a child
- An adult shows pornographic images to a child
Suspicious situations that were reported
“There was a man with a very young girl in a restaurant. The girl barely spoke English and the man could not keep his hands of the girl.”
“At the exit of a hotel I saw two men hand in hand with two young girls who seemed under the age of 18 years old”
“I saw a man with a very young woman, possibly a child, at breakfast in a hotel. The girl was dressed very provocatively and the relationship didn’t seem a caring one.”
