The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has joined 108 other civil society organisations in calling on EU leaders to urgently pass strong legislation to tackle the growing crisis of online child sexual abuse.
In a joint open letter to European decision-makers, signatories from across Europe and beyond urge policymakers to put children’s online safety first and advance an ambitious Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR). The letter warns that continued political deadlock and a lack of ambition risks squandering the opportunity to protect children online in the EU.
After nearly four years of debate on the CSAR, the situation for children has deteriorated sharply. Reports of grooming, sexually coerced extortion, and AI-generated child sexual abuse material have risen dramatically, intensifying concerns that current laws are failing to protect children or prevent repeated victimisation.
The open letter stresses that without robust, binding legislation, imagery of child sexual abuse will continue to circulate indefinitely online, causing lasting harm to victims and allowing perpetrators to operate with impunity.
There is strong public backing for decisive action: more than three in five parents believe politicians and technology companies are not doing enough to protect children online, while four in five EU citizens support requiring online service providers to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material. Recent polling by the IWF showed that nearly nine in ten adults across Germany, Italy and Poland think their governments should back proposed EU child sexual abuse legislation that seeks to protect children online and ensure that tech companies can detect for images and videos of child sexual abuse on their websites and platforms.
Signatories on the letter express deep concern that efforts to safeguard children have been undermined by misinformation about the technologies involved, alongside a refusal to confront the scale and severity of online sexual exploitation. Privacy and child protection are not mutually exclusive, and children have a fundamental right not to have their abuse recorded, shared, and viewed repeatedly online. At the same time, all users have the right not to encounter traumatic and degrading content depicting the sexual abuse of children.
As one of the world’s leading organisations combating online child sexual abuse, the IWF is urging EU leaders to seize this critical moment to establish Europe as a global champion for children’s online safety. The open letter calls for an effective, comprehensive and ambitious CSAR that reflects both the urgency of the crisis and Europe’s responsibility to lead by example.
IWF CEO Kerry Smith said: “The Regulation is an essential step towards ensuring stronger and more consistent protection for children across the European Union. Coordinated action is essential to end the child sexual abuse crisis and protect children from further harm.
“Children deserve laws that prioritise their safety and this letter seeks to keep their rights at the heart of the debate.”
