Online sexual harassment among children and young people has been described as prevalent (Ofsted 2021), to the extent that for some young people, incidents are so commonplace that they see no point in reporting them. The same report from Ofsted included a quote from a girl on this subject saying ‘It shouldn’t be our responsibility to educate boys’. 

Children’s charity Childnet International, together with international partners in Denmark and Hungary, carried out quantitative research on this area, together with focus groups and co-created with the help of youth advisory boards in each country, a practical toolkit called Step up Speak up. The focus of these resources is to tackle peer-based online sexual harassment by empowering local communities to work together to prevent this from happening and to increase reporting by young people. All the resources can be found at www.deshame.eu. Included are guidance, practical and easy to use teaching materials, videos (including of young people saying what they want) all designed for professionals to develop their own understanding on this subject and enable them to raise awareness of online sexual harassment amongst young people aged 13-17 and better support young people.