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The crime is a major problem in the Philippines, where traffickers arrange for minors to be abused on camera, sometimes to order from paying “customers.” The NCA has not said which other two countries have made the disturbing top three ranking.
“Radical” paedophiles are also seeking to normalise the behaviour and incite others to take part, a conference on how to limit the scale of offending heard.
Sarah Blight, the NCA lead for online child sex abuse, said: “Over the past few years we have seen a huge increase in the scale of child sex abuse, increases in complexity, severity and the obvious link between the sharing of indecent images of children and the real-world contact and sexual abuse of children.”
The NCA assesses there are between 550,000 and 850,000 people in the UK who pose varying degrees of sexual risk to youngsters, she said.
She added: “Unfortunately, the UK is in the top three consumers in the world of live-streamed child sex abuse from the Philippines.”
“For only £10 to £20 offenders can orchestrate live-streaming of child sex abuse from countries such as the Philippines.
“It is very hard for us to pick up those amounts of money because they are very small.”
She was speaking at this month’s PIER22: Child Sexual Abuse online conference which explored ways to reduce the risks to children using the internet and improve the chances of catching offenders.
The conference heard that last year the Internet Watch Foundation took down a record 252,000 web addresses containing images or videos of children being sexually abused or raped, with most victims aged 11 to 13.
Ms Blight warned that British paedophiles are also becoming more sophisticated in offending and evading detection after meeting in shady online forums.
She explained: “We are seeing encryption used by default – the use of anonymisation, destruction tools and the dark web.
“Offenders on the dark web coach each other with manuals on how to deploy security measures to avoid being caught.”
Lewis Andrews, 26, was found with two such manuals when police raided his home in south London last November.
He was jailed for 13 months at Inner London Crown Court last month after being convicted of being in possession of thousands of Category A, B and C images and videos of child pornography.
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