PRESS RELEASE 11.11.2022
A New European Funded Initiative to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE).
The Protect and Prevent Through Support (2PS) initiative has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme for Research and Innovation Actions Grant No.101073949. 2PS is coordinated by the Polish Platform for Homeland Security – an experienced Non-Governmental Organisation working in the Security Research Domain in Europe. For more information about 2PS’ partners, please visit the EU’s CORDIS site.
The project is a three-year prevention initiative that started in October 2022 and will run to September 2025. Throughout the 3 years, the consortium of 2PS will work on a variety of pressing topics and actions to help address the growing issues of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE), particularly in the online environment (OCSAE).
Prevention First
2PS and its partners consider all forms of CSAE as a severe concern. 2PS does not excuse or condone any form of child abuse, nor do we claim that prevention alone will ‘solve’ the issues facing societies across Europe and the world regarding the volume of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or the increase of (OCSAE) or any other related crimes putting children at risk of abuse and or exploitation.
Nevertheless, 2PS and its partners have a huge range of experience and understand that to effectively address the challenges societies face, we should increase prevention actions and provide support and services to individuals at risk of engaging in illegal or risky behaviour to help prevent them from harming children.
How the Project Helps?
Amongst a various actions- the project will establish a central repository of services and support actions that can help to divert anyone who recognises they are having indecent thoughts towards children or engaging with materials that are a source of concern and could lead to illegal content consumption; for example, CSAM.
2PS fully supports lawful enforcement action by police and prosecution services and recognises that not all persons having indecent thoughts about children will be receptive to getting help to prevent offending. Moreover, enforcement can often be a gateway to support that helps individuals develop future prevention strategies to stop them offending again.
2PS aims to provide support to those who have not yet offended and who are willing to engage to prevent offending and victimisation and, where offending has occurred, provide support to prevent future offending and victimisation.
The project team consists of specialists spanning multiple fields of expertise – together, this consists of 20 formal partners from 14 countries. The team includes National Helplines, Universities, Outpatient Clinics, Psychologists and Sexologists, Law Enforcement, Technology partners, NGOs and Legal experts. The team strives toward positive change and we are dedicated to implement steps that can and will protect children.