WARNING: This story talks about child exploitation and may be hard to read for some people.

The number of people prosecuted for offences in connection with child exploitation is only a fraction of reported cases, according to figures released by police.

An Official Information Act request to police has revealed that between 2019 and 2023, 2468 proceedings against offenders for child exploitation material resulted in court action.

Bay of Plenty had 123, well behind Wellington, which had the highest total of 630.

Northland had a high per-capita rate of offending at 233 cases, as did Tasman at 232, while Canterbury had 295. Auckland City had just 71 and Counties Manukau had 113.

Men aged 30-34 were the main offenders – 424 out of the 2468 total.

But the number of reports regarding child exploitation in New Zealand dwarfed that number of cases, said Department of Internal Affairs digital child exploitation team manager Tim Houston.

“Sometimes it could be 100 reports [a day], other times it could be 20.”

Such reports often came from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which was based in the United States, Houston said.

A further 1200 referrals yearly came from other sources, such as the public, he said.

Houston’s DIA team pairs with the New Zealand police and Customs to form a tri-agency approach and assign the reports to the relevant agency.

“We have representatives from the three agencies that come together every morning and triage the referrals we’ve received,” Houston said.

The number of reported NCMEC cases in New Zealand has risen exponentially, from 9971 in 2021 to 19,685 in 2023, reaching a peak of 30,090 in 2022.

In 2019, the DIA led a joint effort called Operation H, when massive amounts of this material were seized and users taken into custody. This operation is still ongoing.

The operation resulted in 46 arrests in New Zealand, 836 cases investigated internationally, and 146 children safeguarded worldwide.

High-speed internet and the explosion of various apps and web platforms are some of the primary drivers of the increase. In contrast, objectionable child abuse material was previously viewed on DVDs and magazines, Houston said.

Public awareness around objectionable child abuse material was often limited because the average person simply could not understand the severity of the problem, he said.

His team will execute search warrants, seize devices and conduct forensic examinations to ultimately prosecute a person in possession of objectionable child abuse material.

“The team’s been around since 1995, and we have had some people on the team since the dawn of the online offending.

“We work off a scale of imagery. We start at one end. We have child sexualised posing, right through to extreme, sadistic stuff.”

Often, there was a link between those who possessed or supplied objectionable child abuse material and those who would abuse a child, based on US-based research, Houston said.

“There is psychological research that indicates between 55% and 85% of people who have been charged, arrested and incarcerated were imprisoned for online child exploitation images, have or would, if the opportunity arose, physically offend against the child.”

Child Alert deputy director of survivor engagement Synteche Collins.

The connection between child abuse and objectionable child abuse material was not always straightforward, according to Child Alert survivor engagement deputy director Synteche Collins.

“Yes, we have had the sort of crossovers where they’ve gone from viewing it to then carrying out the abuse on children themselves,” Collins said.

“There are many people who can view this content their whole lives and not necessarily go on to other types of sexual offending.”

A wide range of people look at this content, with a recent example being naval recruits caught sharing violent imagery involving animals and children, she said.

“Not necessarily having a particular preference for adolescents sexually, but just like being attracted to the taboo nature of it.”

This material was everywhere on the dark net and “clear net” social media sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, Collins said.

Social media platforms operated by Snap Inc and Meta have been in hot water about child sexual abuse material accessibility on their platforms.

According to an email from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, nearly two-thirds of Generation Z teens and young adults in six countries said they or their friends had been targeted in online “sextortion” schemes, new research from Snap Inc shows.

Meta, the social media company, during an internal presentation in 2021, said an estimated 100,000 children a day were sexually harassed on its message platforms, according to the same email.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection ran Cybertips Canada’s tip line for reporting online child sexual abuse and exploitation, director of research and analytics Jacques Marcoux said.

“Depending on where we’re looking, we issue between 2000 to sometimes 10,000 take-down notices in a single day,” he said.

“To more than 1000 service providers online.”

Marcoux said it was not illegal for file-hosting services to host child sexual abuse material (CSAM). It was illegal only if they were made aware of it.

In New Zealand, reporting that material is not mandatory but voluntary, and is something Collins said needed to change.

“Digital child sexual exploitation filtering system that still relies on the ISPs opting in is not compulsory.

“We have to advocate for them to see the value in making them report and take down CSAM content.”

There was an element of organised crime related to online child exploitation and objectionable material, but it was largely a crime of opportunity, she said.

“Other exploitation issues have that organised-crime factor so embedded, and it’s linked to money laundering and all the rest of it,” Collins said.