Online Sexual Exploitation against Children: Constructing and Validating Vignettes for Assessing the Views of Guardians

• In Event: Youth Victimization in a Digital Age

Abstract

OSEC is an umbrella term that captures the many forms of sexual abuse against children, including online sexual grooming, sexting, sexual extortion, and live-streaming sexual abuse and pornographic images. This paper describes a four-step protocol to create and validate a series of vignettes for collecting guardians’ views in the school setting. In step 1, the research team conducted a systematic review of local cases reported in the news and the court documents to identify the typical characteristics of OSEC with different combinations of the victims’ genders and ages and perpetrators ‘ages. In step 2, the research team members constructed the storylines and research questions through several rounds of discussion. In step 3, these vignettes and research questions were validated by three groups of experts:(a) social workers, (b) police officers, and (c) those who have offending and victimization experience by commenting on (a) how realistic the vignette scenario is, (b) how clear the vignette statement is to readers, and (c) suggestions for additional components (e.g., modus operandi) for each vignette. In step 4, a pilot test was conducted in a primary school to assess the suitability of the presentation of the vignette study.

Authors

• Jessica Li, The Hong Kong Polytechnics University

• Albert Shi-king Ho, Central Chambers