New Mongolian portal to protect children online

An “essential” new reporting portal in Mongolia will help keep children safe online amid the “heightened risks of online harms” during the Coronavirus crisis.

Today (1 June) the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), in partnership with UNICEF Mongolia and the Communications Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (CRCMN) is launching a new reporting portal allowing people in Mongolia to report online child sexual abuse material.

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

People in Mongolia can visit https://report.iwf.org.uk/mn to report videos and images of children suffering child sexual abuse if they stumble across them online.

Once reported, the content will be assessed by a trained IWF analyst in the UK.

The portal will be available in Mongolian, Kazah, and English.

Susie Hargreaves, CEO of the IWF, said: “It’s really important the world doesn’t take its eye off the suffering of children – and their suffering is being amplified online every day when criminals share images and videos of their sexual abuse and torture.

“These portals are essential in fighting the global spread of child sexual abuse material wherever in the world it is found. This will make children everywhere safer, and will protect people in Mongolia from stumbling across this material.”

Dr Howard Taylor, Executive Director of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children (EVAC), which is helping fund the portal, said: “A key part of tackling online child sexual abuse is to remove images and videos of such abuse.

“To get this removed, it needs to be as easy as possible for the public to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

“For the End Violence Fund, financing IWF portals worldwide is an important part of our commitment to this fight to prevent and respond to online CSAM globally. Given the heightened risks of online harms due to COVID-19, strong core services to protect children online are needed more than ever.”

Jenny Thornton, International Development Manager at the IWF said: ”Everyone, no matter where they live, has a right to a safe internet. Children must be protected, and this new portal could make all the difference.

“By launching this reporting portal, we can help make sure people in Mongolia have somewhere they can turn if they find child sexual abuse material on the internet.”