New campaign features six Canadian moms sharing the online sexual victimization of their children

Six moms from across Canada have come together to share the devastating stories of their children’s online sexual victimization in a new campaign from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P).

“These courageous moms chose to share their heartbreaking stories to help Canadians understand why we desperately need legislation to protect our children from dangerous spaces online, just like we do offline,” said Lianna McDonald, Executive Director of C3P. “This is why we need safety regulations for the platforms kids use every day, as proposed in the Online Harms Bill.”

Shared from the same places their children should have been safe, these stories alert parents to the fact that nowhere is currently safe for a Canadian child - not their school, not their playground, not even their own bedroom - as soon as they’re online.

In the last year, C3P has seen a 27% increase in reports of online sexual exploitation to Cybertip.ca, Canada’s tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. This alarming increase reinforces the urgent need for the Online Harms Bill to be passed.

These moms have not only suffered the horrific nightmare of what happened to their children, they’ve suffered under the assumption that online safety is solely a parenting issue. This is the preconception the ‘Safe Spaces’ campaign seeks to change. This can happen to anyone. That is why it is so critical to create legal guardrails that require online service providers meet safety standards designed to protect their users, especially when those users are children.

View the campaign at protectchildren.ca/safespaces.