Case Study: Reporting portal and takedown notice in Ukraine

Our IWF Reporting portal in Ukraine is a fantastic example of global cooperation and partnership. 

The Ukraine Reporting Portal launched on 11 February 2020 and developed in collaboration with #stop_sexting educational project and the Children's Rescue, an NGO based in Ukraine, and supported by the Ombudsman for Children with the President of Ukraine Office and the Ministry of Digital Transformation and telecom operator Kyivstar, is one of our most active portals. This is in part due to our partner’s great efforts towards a national understanding of the issue of online child sexual abuse content, and the launch of their educational project #stop_sexting, a successful campaign to raise awareness on child sexual abuse and child safety online. Recently, the project received the “Peace” nomination in the Partnership For Sustainability Award (GC Network Ukraine.) 

The Ukrainian portal shows the importance of international cooperation with our law enforcement colleagues. In 2020, Ukraine was the 10^th highest country for hosting online child sexual abuse imagery, up from 11^th position in 2019. Our partners introduced us to the Cyber Police in Ukraine to have a direct link between the IWF and our law enforcement counterparts in the country. Moreover, the Ukrainian NGO Children's Rescue, with support of doTERRA Healing Hands Initiative, created a small cyber team in March 2020 to monitor inappropriate content searched proactively and ensure providers delete links and materials they receive from the IWF.  

The #stop_sexting project, launched in November 2018, united young people, teachers, parents and volunteers in Ukraine and is supported by national businesses, government, international experts and organisations. It provides awareness-raising resources on sexting, online grooming and sextortion. These resources consist of games and other interactive tools to help parents and carers build trust-based communication around digital safety with their child. 80,000 children have checked the lesson plan in 2020. 

As a result of these two projects, as well as the launch of an awareness-raising campaign about the portal that encourages people to report such content, since April 2020 we noticed a real change: reports containing child sexual abuse material hosted in Ukraine were taken down much quicker. In August 2020, 82.6% of content was removed between 0-9 days compared with just 22.4% in August 2019. While 3.4% of content was removed in less than 4 days in August 2019, as much as 79.5% was removed as quickly in the same month in 2020.

*The IWF reporting portal for members of the public in Ukraine relaunched on International Women's Day March 8 2023, to provide vital protection against online child sexual exploitation a year on from the start of the Russian invasion.

Since the full Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24 2022, efforts to stem the rise of online child sexual abuse have been hampered by the fighting in the country.

On top of this, children are more vulnerable to abuse as predators seek to take advantage of the invasion to exploit and groom children who are having to spend longer online – relying on the internet to study, socialise, and play. Read the full article here.