Sexting is on the rise amongst young people in Gibraltar, according to the RGP’s Safeguarding Team.

Detectives from this specialised department wish to warn parents and guardians that the RGP now receives one or two reports of sexting every week.

The main issue involves children aged 12 years up until the age of 18 taking and then sharing indecent images on social media or communication media such as WhatsApp or Snapchat.

It’s important to remember that in the eyes of the law everyone is classified as children until they reach the age of 18.

But detectives are also concerned about local children accessing Internet sites such as Omegle, where strangers can talk to them in a sexual manner and share images and videos of an indecent nature.

Now officers are warning parents, teachers, guardians and children of the dangers of sexting and sharing indecent images online.

According to Detective Sergeant Joanna Ullger of the RGP’s Safeguarding Team, there has been an increase since the start of the pandemic, as children are spending more time at home and on the Internet.

She said: “We’ve definitely seen an increase in sexting and the taking and sharing of indecent images since the lock down.

“But we don’t want to criminalise children for not fully understanding the law or making a very bad error in judgement. However, there is a serious concern when someone deliberately shares explicit images and videos of someone. “Sexting is not without consequences, but all teenagers make mistakes. There are ways for parents, schools, and communities to respond to sexting without criminalising youngsters and jeopardising their futures.“

The issue is once these pictures go viral, no matter how hard our officers try to erase all images, there will almost always be one image still out there, which may re-surface a day/week/month even years later. We wish we had a magic wand and could have them all deleted, but we don’t. We have to understand that once we click that send button we lose control of the image/video.”

The age of consent is 16 in Gibraltar, but the law against indecent images of children still applies to sharing sexual videos or photos of those (even yourself) under 18, an issue which some young people may not be aware of.

DS Ullger added that in order to combat the issue they have been giving talks at schools to children and training to teachers.

Additionally, there have been sexting awareness videos posted on the RGP Facebook page.

For more advice about Sexting visit www.police.gi/information/cyber-safety/sexting or visit the RGP’s partner agency Get Safe Online at www.getsafeonline.org/personal/article-category/safeguarding-children/