‘Historic moment’ as Argentina launches its first reporting portal to report images and videos of child sexual abuse

The latest IWF portal marks a key step in Argentina’s fight against illegal videos and images of child sexual abuse.

The launch of the Argentina Reporting Portal marks a ‘historic moment’ in the global fight against child sexual abuse material as the portal will make the internet a safer place for children in Argentina and globally.

The new portal will help remove and block illegal material from the internet and enable Argentinian citizens to report instances of child sexual abuse material in a safe and anonymous way should they stumble across them on the internet. The portal is accessible in Spanish and available here: https://report.iwf.org.uk/ar. 

Set up by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the Argentinian portal has been developed in partnership with the Ministerio Publico Fiscal – Cuidad Autonoma de Buenos Aires (Attorney General’s Office – Autonomous city of Buenos Aires) and with the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC). The portal is one of 30 to have been funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children (the End Violence Partnership).

Today (22 of June), Juan Bautista Mahiques, Attorney General of the city of Buenos Aires, and Heidi Kempster, IWF’s Deputy CEO and COO, are signing the portal contract, officially launching the portal in Argentina. This signature effectively offers a way for people in Argentina to do their part in the fight to make the internet safer for children by providing them a way to report material showing the sexual abuse of children online.

The IWF is the international charity responsible for finding and removing images and videos of child sexual abuse from the internet. 

Once reported through the new portal, images and videos will be assessed by trained IWF analysts in the UK. 

If they are found to contain child sexual abuse, they can be blocked and removed from the internet. 

The launch event will be attended by Juan Bautista Mahiques, Attorney General of the city of Buenos Aires, the Justice and Security Secretary of the Justice and Security Ministry Marcelo D’Alessandro, Hernán Monath, Specialist in Rights Protection and Access to Justice in UNICEF Argentina, Miguel García Egido, Grants Manager at the End Violence Partnership, Pilar Ramirez, the International Child Protection & Criminal Justice Training Director at ICMEC, and many other key partners and actors in the national and global fight against child abuse.

Juan Bautista Mahiques, Attorney General of the city of Buenos Aires, said: "I would like to mention that the use of the portal will allow all citizens to safely and anonymously report online images of child sexual abuse and to collaborate, in this way, in the fight against this crime.
"I am proud to be part of the launch of this portal, that I am convinced will help strengthen a public policy of prevention, transparency, and access to justice closer to citizens.”

Bob Cunningham, Chief Executive Officer of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, IWF’s partner, said "Each of us has an important role to play in safeguarding children. Today's launch of Argentina's reporting portal is a momentous milestone in equipping Argentinians with the vehicle to report child sexual abuse material for investigation and removal. This is a crucial step forward in the fight to create a safer internet and safer world for children everywhere. "

Dr Howard Taylor, the Executive Director of the End Violence Partnership, said: “With the launch of Argentina’s new Internet Watch Foundation portal, people across the country can detect and report online sexual images and videos of children, and contribute to the removal of this content across the world. 

“Together with the Internet Watch Foundation, we have now launched portals in 30 countries to protect children – and we congratulate Argentina for this ground-breaking effort to keep children safe online.” 

Susie Hargreaves OBE, Chief Executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, said: “This is an historic moment, and a first for Argentina. We are pleased to take this important step with them. 

“These images and videos are crime scenes and, while they are being circulated by criminals and predators on the internet, the children cannot move on, and are revictimised all over again. Reporting these images and videos will lead to their removal and stop the revictimisation of these children.

“This launch also marks the end of the Portal Project funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. Thanks to them, we are launching the 30th and last portal today, fully funded by the Partnership. We are so grateful for their support throughout these past years, and we hope to continue our collaboration in the years to come.”

The portal in Argentina is the 48th IWF Portal to launch and the 12th to be set up in Latin America. It is also the 30th End Violence Partnership-sponsored Portal, marking the success of a project started four years ago.

In 2017, the IWF received a grant from the End Violence Partnership in order to launch 30 reporting portals in Least Developed Countries, Low Income Countries and Lower Middle-Income Countries, at no cost for the host nation. This grant enabled 30 countries and nations to give to their citizens access to a vital reporting mechanism, making the internet safer on their territory and contributing to the global efforts to securing the internet all over the globe.

IWF is one of 69 organisations benefiting from the Partnership’s End Violence Fund, which provides financial support to programmes around the world, contributing to projects that deliver practical, innovative and effective solutions to end violence against children. Since 2016, End Violence Fund has invested $44 million in 53 projects focused on preventing and eliminating online child sexual exploitation and abuse in over 70 countries across the world. The Reporting Portals project is part of the Safe Online Fund. 

IWF Portals are available in countries all around the world in 17 languages (Arabic, English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Kazakh, Lingala, Malaysian Bahasa, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian, Urdu, Wolof).

The public is given this advice when making a report: 

• Do report images and videos of child sexual abuse to the IWF to be removed. Reports to the IWF are anonymous. 
• Do provide the exact URL where child sexual abuse images are located. 
• Don’t report other harmful content – you can find details of other agencies to report to on the IWF’s website. 
• Do report to the police if you are concerned about a child’s welfare,  
• Do report only once for each web address – or URL. Repeat reporting of the same URL isn’t needed and wastes analysts’ time. 
• Do report non-photographic visual depictions of the sexual abuse of children, such as computer-generated images. Anything of this nature, which is also hosted in the UK, the IWF can get removed.