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Implementation
and a registration system for staff of day nurseries. Although the Gunning Committee concerned itself
exclusively with day nurseries, it could or should also be possible to apply such measures in other sectors
in which people work with children.
Public prevention
A fourth target group that can form the focus of prevention measures is the general public. Although
the general public are well aware of the phenomena of child sexual abuse and child pornography, many
misconceptions exist in relation to perpetrators and victims of such offences. Moreover, detailed reporting
of major abuse cases can give rise to anxiety amongst the public, whilst they are not given the
means to protect themselves and their children from abuse. To this end, it could be useful to take an
approach such as that of a public health model, in which sexual abuse of children is viewed within the
broader context of public health. Such a model can focus upon education and the identification of risks,
and it can also target perpetrators. The absence of accurate information and the attitude of the public
towards paedophilia can make the existing barriers for paedophiles to seek help even greater. In order
to overcome these obstacles and actually achieve a preventative effect, it is important that the public is
informed of the nature of victims and perpetrators. As yet, no such approach is used in the Netherlands.
3.3 Identification & recording
In the previous paragraph (§3.2), we discussed the primary and secondary prevention of sexual violence
against children, including child pornography. During that particular discussion, the prevention
of sexual violence is focused upon up to the point at which sexual violence – offline and/or online 101 –
actually took place. From that point onwards, it is important to prevent recidivism and revictimisation
from occurring, or in other words, to ensure that tertiary prevention measures are taken, in accordance
with Smallbone’s prevention model. 102 The identification of sexual violence against children and, more
specifically, child abuse material, forms a part of tertiary prevention that is strongly emphasized. After
all, if sexual violence is not noticed, it is not possible to take any intervention measures in order to prevent
further violence. Tertiary prevention therefore begins with recognising the indicators and further to
this, reporting them to the appropriate authorities. In this section we will explain these measures with
regard to the situation in the Netherlands. In this regard we will also examine the extent to which the
authorities involved are ‘digitally aware’, ‘digitally accessible’ and ‘digitally competent’, as these all form
requisites that will enable the authorities to connect with the present living environment of children/
young people. 103 The interventions that are used – as a result of indicators being reported – in order
to prevent further sexual violence will be discussed in the section on after-care and monitoring (§3.6).
This section will focus exclusively on the stage of identification within the scope of tertiary prevention
of child pornography, or in a broader context, of sexual violence against children. Identification can
take place with respect to perpetrators, victims and/or content, and this section is structured according
to these distinctions. In §3.3.1, the identification of perpetrators will be described, and in §3.3.2 we will
look at the identification of victims. Both sub-sections aim to answer the following questions:
101 See §1.2.3, Table 1.1 & Table 1.2.
102 See §3.2.1 for a description of Smallbone’s prevention model.
103 Subsidy application for the Action Plan ‘Towards a digital competence in the police force in their role
to protect youth’, Expertgroep Digikids, 19 August 2011. See §3.8.3.1. for further information.
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