It is her life’s work: Julia von Weiler (51) has been campaigning against the sexual abuse of children for 30 years. Although this is often a battle against windmills, she never gives up.
Social media like Tiktok or Instagram are our children’s digital playgrounds. Unfortunately, these involve more risks than slides and swings. As a long-standing board member of “Innocence in Danger eV. “Julia von Weiler knows the dangers of the internet very well. With her organization, she is committed to combating the sexual abuse of children, in particular against the spread of child pornography on the internet. But the internet also brings other dangers with it: contacting people when” cybergrooming “is concerned Pedo criminals target their victims online, “shareholding” is used to disseminate intimate content digitally without being asked, and “livestream abuse.” According to a new global study, more than half of young people have been sexually harassed online.
BRIGITTE.de: A global study * came to the conclusion that the extent of sexual abuse of children on the Internet is growing rapidly – faster than we can react to it. There is talk of a global crisis.
Julia von Weiler: The problem has long since assumed pandemic proportions. Society and politics have long closed their eyes to it and lag behind. Neither the law enforcement agency’s staff nor equipment are sufficient to counter this madness. And when it comes to filters, for example to monitor cybergrooming, the privacy debate is triggered immediately. These discourses go on for a very long time, and criminals do not need to have these discourses. They always have an advantage anyway because they don’t obey the law.
Children unintentionally come into contact with pornography online, they are sexually harassed by pedo criminals, and child pornographic material is produced en masse for the network. What other dangers are there?
The digital media have fundamentally changed the phenomenon of sexual violence, they act like a fire accelerator. Perpetrators always use the options available to them, and that means that they resort to communication in digital space. With the smartphone you have direct, unobserved and undisturbed contact with your victim at all times. You don’t have that anywhere else. The smartphone means: I am always with you, no matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter what you think about. I can interfere at any time. Incidentally, this also applies to perpetrators in the family environment.
The children can no longer get rid of their tormentors.
For those affected, it means that there are no longer any pauses for reflection and no more opportunity to sort themselves out and gain distance. Offenders who get to know a child in digital space also aim to open direct communication as quickly as possible, then they have it on the hook. In England it was found that in the past year 44 percent of all depictions of abuse were “self-generated”, 77 percent more than in the previous year. That is gigantic.
How would you describe that?
A perpetrator: he manipulates a child online, they meet on Skype or Facetime, and he or she gives stage directions on how to undress, touch or how to insert objects into their bodies. That is, the perpetrator or perpetrators: in abusing the child without being psychologically in a room with him, and at the same time generating depictions of abuse.
The perpetrators: inside record and potentially further disseminate the material?
Yes, exactly.
Such “livestream abuse” almost always takes place in one’s own child’s room, virtually under the eyes of the parents. What can they do?
When the family is home, parents think all is well. But that no longer applies: In livestream abuse, the perpetrator penetrates your home from outside. Parents who buy such a device for their child should be aware that they must first move around this room with them and establish rules together. The smaller the children are, the more control they need. This is how you do it on the road: when the children are still tiny, they are not allowed to ride their bikes to visit friends alone, but you are accompanied by them. The older they get, the more negotiations are necessary, ideally a digital agreement with fixed rules is concluded. The parents also have to keep themselves informed. This is a huge room in which the child moves, and great, but also disturbing things happen there.
The main reason that parents buy such devices is because they have the feeling that their child would otherwise become an outsider.
As a society, we always pretend that children and young people want to be on social media. But when every sports club organizes itself through Facebook or Whatsapp groups, we don’t give them any real choice. If you are not there, you are out and right. The whacky goods at the checkout are a good example of how society and politics bow to companies. But while you as parents at the checkout are still relatively self-sufficient in deciding, ‘No, you won’t get that now’, it is more complicated with digital media because you really have the feeling: Then my child is a social outsider, and that’s what I want not.
In 2019 you called for a smartphone ban for people under the age of 14. Many parents thought that was a good thing, but politics did not go along with it. Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Franziska Giffey, said she would prefer “safe communication spaces” for children on the Internet. But there is still no such thing.
When I said that such a ban should be considered, there was an outcry in politics. I found that remarkable. I just wanted to give an impulse, because it is not acceptable that we all sit there, twiddle our thumbs and say: ‘That’s how it is’. But nobody dares to mess with Facebook or Google, not even politicians. The tech companies are insanely big and powerful and do what they want. They also try to address the problems, but in the end it is businesses that are interested in making money and not in the mental health of their users. The crazy thing is that we allow a real mega-experiment with our children and adolescents to take place online. The Internet was originally developed for science, by adults for adults, and so are the structures.
One does not get the impression that the issue is a priority in politics. How can it be that children are not protected online?
Politically, only those topics are interesting that can be tackled in a noteworthy legislature. This topic is inconvenient and unsexy, it’s an ongoing endeavor that won’t go away. But we always pretend the problem is purely an internet phenomenon. This is nonsense – both the people who consume depictions of abuse, as well as the people who abuse the children in these depictions, and the children themselves, they live somewhere. They are our neighbors, they go to school with our children, that is the guy at the entrance to the allotment arbor. It’s not just a law enforcement problem; it’s a societal problem.
Do we all need to be more careful?
All people who have anything to do with children must be made fit for this topic. In a school I not only have to get better at recognizing a potentially endangered child, but also at potential threats: inside. According to the WHO, at least two children per class are affected by sexual violence. For teachers, that means they know the children who are affected, and in all likelihood they also know the perpetrators, who usually come from close quarters. The majority of the perpetrators also come from the depictions of abuse on the Internet: from relatives, family, friends or the sports club. We have to act at all levels: people have to be trained, the tech companies have to act, politicians have to create binding legal frameworks for this, they have to improve the possibilities of prosecution and better equip public prosecutors and courts. It is not uncommon for unevaluated technology to be returned because deadlines have passed.
What have you been able to achieve yourself so far with your “Innocence in Danger” association?
Realizing that this phenomenon is a serious problem. We have contributed to the education of politics and society and have played a part in creating awareness for it. And we develop practical programs that empower people to deal with the problem and be more educated. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of children and professionals we have already reached with it. Just recently a teacher called and said, ‘We are so glad we did the program with you the other day and now a girl has turned to us and we were much more confident in our approach.’
You have been dealing with the topic for 30 years. How did that happen?
Total coincidence. I studied psychology in New York and failed to get an internship. Then I needed a place very quickly and by chance ended up at the Children’s Safety Project, which works with children affected by sexual violence. Three months of internship turned into one and a half years. And on the plane home I met a professor whose sister in the Waren district opened the first residential group for abused girls. Then I continued. I would say that the topic found me – and we are far from finished with each other.
Reading tip: Julia von Weiler is also the author of the book “On the Net: Protecting Children from Sexual Violence” (Herder spectrum, 4.96 euros).
* The worldwide study “Global Threat Assessment Report 2021“was from the”WeProtect Global Alliance “, in which 98 governments and numerous companies and organizations are involved. More than 5000 young people from 54 countries were asked about their experiences on the Internet.