Brå’s follow-up of the crime “exploitation of children through the purchase of a sexual act”

On April 29, the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) released its follow-up of the crime “exploitation of children through the purchase of a sexual act” they conducted on behalf of the government. In this follow-up, Brå has reviewed documents from several cases with this offense from 2019 and conducted interviews with representatives from the judicial system and social services. They have also participated in work sessions with the police and studied documents, literature and crime statistics.

Review of cases

As part of the investigation, Brå has reviewed 69 cases involving the crime of “exploitation of children through the purchase of sexual acts” from 2019. Brå’s review of the cases shows that about 4 out of 5 victims are girls, that the average age of the victims is 15 years and that all perpetrators are men and have an average age of 35 years. Brå has found that a third of the cases are linked to sugar dating and confirms a picture from previous studies showing that children with experience of sexual acts for payment are more likely than other young people to be in various types of vulnerability. They also note that it is common for a complainant to be suspected of having been subjected to several different crimes, which makes the investigations complex.

In more than half of the cases reviewed by the National Crime Agency, it was the police who made the report. About half of the cases have been closed, and the cases that are closed to the greatest extent are so-called attempted crimes and cases where the complainant has not participated in the investigation. In all cases reviewed by Brå and decided in court, the defendant has been convicted of a crime. In some cases, however, the crime has been given a different classification in the judgment than the purchase of a sexual act from a child.

Crimes that occurred after the increase in penalties

On January 1, 2020, the penalty scale for sex purchase offenses against children was increased from a fine or imprisonment for a maximum of two years to imprisonment for a maximum of four years. Because of this, Brå has also conducted a supplementary review of convictions for crimes committed after this increase in penalties. What Brå found in this review is that none of the convictions involving “exploitation of children through the purchase of a sexual act” have led to custodial sentences despite the tightening of the law.

The interview material

The interview material revealed that it is usually the police who discover and report this crime and not the vulnerable children themselves. The discovery often takes place in connection with other investigations where, for example, the mobile phone or other storage media are emptied. Brå also finds that the police work to a limited extent to actively detect sex purchase crimes against children and that they only base their outreach work on a method that involves contacting children by assumed name with the aim of arranging a meeting and thus preventing exposure and detecting ongoing crimes. This method is carried out in collaboration with social services.

When it comes to investigating these crimes, the National Operations Department (NOA) has recommended that it should be done by regional cybercrime centers (RC3), but it turns out that this is only done in four out of seven police regions. The Swedish National Audit Office highlights this in its report on so-called cybercrimes – crimes involving internet-related sexual abuse of children. They state that it is problematic that this is not done in the same way in the different regions, as the variation risks creating problems with both the management of the activities and with method development and follow-up. The Council’s interviews also describe a problem in that so-called sex purchase offenses risk being overlooked as other sexual abuse offenses against children increase. This is due to a shortage of staff with knowledge of this type of crime.

Brå’s assessment

In the report, Brå describes the crime of “exploitation of children through the purchase of sexual acts” as a serious crime with a large number of unreported cases that the police and social services need to collaborate on in their outreach work. They believe that the police may need to develop alternative methods to their outreach work to strengthen it. Collaboration between the police and social services can be formalized both at an overall strategic level and at an operational level. Brå also writes that work on this type of crime needs to be organized in a more uniform way between and within the police regions to ensure that the crime does not fall between the cracks.

At the time of publication of the report, the Government has already submitted a bill proposing to further increase the minimum penalty for “exploitation of children through the purchase of a sexual act” to six months’ imprisonment. Brå believes that this increase in the penalty is justified, given that custodial sentences for this crime are still unusual today.

Child10’s comment

Child10 has eagerly awaited this investigation, which confirms the picture of the reality for vulnerable children that we have seen in our reports and conveyed to decision-makers – that the work against commercial sexual exploitation of children is insufficient and inadequate. The fact that this reality has now been presented based on a government investigation makes us hope that the protection and support for children who are exposed will improve.

In its report, Brå highlights most of the proposals recently put forward by Child10, such as

• more regional coordinators with a special focus on children
• national coordination of police work and strengthened formal cooperation with social services
• increasing the knowledge of all agencies that may come into contact with vulnerable children to ensure that children receive the support they are entitled to
• development of more outreach methods for police identification of child victims
• the possibility to investigate more cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children as rape

We are particularly pleased that Brå highlights the need for a shift in knowledge, which is something Child10 has been pushing for over the past year. An important part of that knowledge boost is to change the view of commercial sexual exploitation among those who meet the vulnerable from blaming the child to putting the responsibility on the perpetrator. This is because commercial sexual exploitation is not something children choose – it is something they are exposed to.