The Canadian Centre for Child Protection is calling the growing number of sextortion offences being reported an ‘epidemic.”“To be completely frank, the situation is completely out of control.
We can barely keep up with the sextortion reports that are coming in to us,” Canadian Centre for Child Protection Associate Executive Director Signy Arnason told Global News.Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and the Philippines are ‘critical jurisdictions’ where alleged perpetrators are successfully victimizing people, often for financial gain, Arnason said.Statistics Canada data reports a nearly 80-per cent increase in cyber-related extortion offences in 2020 from the year before.
Arnason says that number has continued to rise. Read more: Sextortion ‘recovery scams’ on the rise in Canada, experts warn She says with children and youth spending more time at home and on their digital devices during the pandemic, their vulnerability to being victimized increased as well.
The child protection agency says there’s also a spike in boys being targeted.“They’re tricked into believing they’re speaking with a teenage girl.