The Combating Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) Community Awareness Project is an initiative launched by the “Initiative for Safe Migration and Social Justice.” The project’s primary objective is to equip teachers with comprehensive knowledge of Child Sexual Abuse Materials to enhance their ability to organize training sessions for children in their respective schools. These sessions aim to educate children about Child Sexual Abuse Materials and empower them to prevent and report instances of abuse.
Key goals of the project include providing teachers with essential knowledge on identifying abuse, preventing CSAM, offering a trauma-informed response to child victims, and preventing re-traumatization and re-victimization.
During the training sessions, teachers will learn about the definition of a child according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child Rights Acts of Nigeria. The training will cover topics such as child sexual abuse, Online Child Sexual Abuse Materials, characteristics of online and offline offenders, the Age of Consent, grooming activities of offenders, the effects of Online Child Sexual Abuse Materials on children, and a multi-disciplinary approach to combating this issue.
Teachers are selected as the primary audience for this project due to their close proximity to a wide range of children, enabling them to effectively educate their pupils and students. To ensure consistency in teaching curriculum on Online Child Sexual Abuse Materials, each teacher-participant will receive a handbook as a comprehensive guide.
The immediate goal of this project is to raise awareness of Online Child Sexual Abuse Materials among school children, with the long-term goal being to create a safer digital society for children to grow without any form of sexual exploitation.