Sexting may be common among teenagers and young adults. Recent reports, however, found that the practice is also prevalent among children under 10 years old.
Detective Superintendent John Macdonald of Scotland Yard's Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command in the United Kingdom said that the problem is "very under-reported," according to Sky News. They believe that the majority of young girls involved don't consider reporting their circumstances because they view it as a normal thing to do.
In just six days, Macdonald's team found that 11- and 12-year-old girls sent naked photos to men online. There are many instances that these children were threatened into sending explicit pictures and videos.
"The ones that develop into more coercive requests where the child is being threatened if they don't send the image, that obviously will be less in volume, but I still think we don't see most of those being reported. It's a really hidden crime," Macdonald continued, as quoted by Sky News.
Samuel David Lopez-Florez, a 25-year-old Mexican national from east London, was recently imprisoned with a nine-year sentence after coercing a 12-year-old girl to send him explicit videos of herself. When the child wished to stop, Lopez-Florez sent the recording to her friends on the Internet.
In September, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), a charity that works on child protection in the U.K., said that the rate of children counseled by Childline due to sexting increased by 15 percent in just a year. In the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), 63 percent of teachers admitted in a March survey that they know 14-year-olds sexting. Some teachers also said that they are aware of 7, 8, and 9-year-old children who are involved with the practice.
NSPCC listed why children or young people sext. For others, it may be a form of flirting and exploring their sexual identity or sexual feelings. Others join in because they have lots of friends or acquaintances who do it, or because they want to boost their self-esteem.
Some children commit sexting to get attention and to connect with strangers on social media. These kids often have trouble saying no to somebody who asks them for an explicit photo or video, especially if that person is insistent.
Sexting usually leads to blackmail, bullying, emotional distress and unwanted attention from sex offenders. Once a person sends an explicit photo or a video of herself/himself, he/she has no more control about how it's passed on by the recipient.
