*1.2. Prevalence of CSAM*

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) manages the CyberTipline, a national service through which the public and internet service providers (ISPs) can report suspected child sexual exploitation. From its inception in 1998, the CyberTipline has received over 50 million reports and this number has grown exponentially in recent years (NCMEC 2019). The CyberTipline now receives over one million reports every month, with 18.4 million reports received in 2018 alone (NCMEC 2019). Research into actively trafficked images of identified victims depicts alarming trends including more egregious sexual content over time and increased trafficking of images of prepubescent victims (Seto et al. 2018). Similar trends have been noted in Canada. A study by Cybertip.ca, a tip line for reporting online sexual exploitation of minors, reports that 78% of CSAM on the internet depicts children under the age of 12 with the majority (63%) being under the age of eight (CCCP 2016). As the age of the child decreases, these images are becoming increasingly violent and containing more explicit sexual acts (CCCP 2016). Once these images enter cyberspace, they become next to impossible to permanently destroy, contributing to the ongoing victimization of affected children that continues into adulthood (Binford 2015; Bursztein et al. 2019; Martin 2014).

Each time a child's image is redistributed, collected, and viewed, the child's abuse is perpetuated. The child victims in these images continue to endure the "forced recording of non-consensual sexual victimization and the subsequent and equally non-consensual circulation of those images world-wide" (Butt 2007, p. 7). This lack of control over the continued sharing and public access to their abuse images is one of the most challenging aspects of their abuse to overcome and many victims report the resurfacing of these images is worse than the hands-on abuse itself (Binford et al. 2015; CCCP 2017). Adults whose CSA was recorded and distributed online worry constantly about being recognized by someone who has seen images of their abuse even years after the abuse occurred (CCCP 2017).
