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UK center bares online blackmail of children
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Children as young as eight are being blackmailed into performing sex acts live on webcams, causing some of them to even commit suicide, a British watchdog warned yesterday.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said it had conducted 12 probes over the last two years which involved this worrying trend — and suggested British children are particularly at risk.
Pedophiles pretending to be children target their victims on open chat sites, before moving them into private areas where they persuade the child to send sexual images of themselves.
“Once the child has sent images, the offenders begin blackmailing them either for more indecent images or, in few cases, for cash,” the center said in a statement. In some cases, the children are also forced to perform other acts live on a webcam, including writing degrading statements on their body and cutting themselves.
The center said it had identified 424 child victims of online sexual blackmail over the last two years. Seven children were driven to serious self-harm and seven killed themselves.
A significant proportion — 184 — of the victims were from Britain, due to the popularity of the English language.
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