Search Results (5)

Cyber-sexual crimes have become a growing concern in the digital age, as rapid technological progress continues to create new forms of violence and victimization. These offenses affect society unevenly, striking more intensely among minors, women, and other vulnerable groups. Their prevalence is shaped by structural inequalities, educational, economic, and technological, that condition both exposure to digital risks and the capacity for protection. Although international research has connected these disparities with digital victimization, evidence from Spain remains limited. The aim was to analyze the regional distribution of cyber-sexual crimes in Spain between 2011 and 2022 and to explore how education, income, and digital access relate to their incidence. To this end, official data from the Spanish Statistical Crime Portal (PEC) were combined with structural indicators provided by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics. The analysis encompassed reported cases of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, corruption of minors, online grooming, exhibitionism, pornography, and sexual provocation, using standardized incidence rates per 100,000 inhabitants. Statistical methods included ANOVA with post hoc comparisons, correlation analyses, and K-means clustering to identify territorial patterns. Results revealed a sustained national increase in cyber-sexual crimes, with grooming and sexual harassment showing the most pronounced growth. The Balearic Islands (mean 4.9), Canary Islands (4.0), and Andalusia (3.9) registered the highest incidence rates, well above the national average (3.0). Educational disadvantages and low income were linked to sexual abuse and corruption of minors, whereas greater digital connectivity, expressed through higher mobile phone use, broadband access, and computer ownership, was strongly associated with grooming and other technology-facilitated offenses. Cluster analysis identified three distinct territorial profiles: high-incidence regions (Balearic and Canary Islands, Andalusia), intermediate (Murcia, Madrid, Navarre, Valencian Community), and low-incidence (Galicia, Catalonia, Castile and León, among others). In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that cyber-sexual crimes in Spain are unevenly distributed and closely linked to persistent structural vulnerabilities that shape digital exposure. These results underscore the need for territorially sensitive prevention strategies that reduce educational and economic inequalities, foster sexual and digital literacy, and promote safer online environments. Without addressing these underlying structural dimensions, public policies risk overlooking the conditions that sustain regional disparities and limit adequate protection against technology-driven sexual crimes. Full article

This study aims to validate the Online Sexual Harassment Perpetration among Peers (OSHP-P) instrument for assessing online sexual harassment among adolescents in two different countries, Spain and Italy, considering both new forms of online sexual harassment and gender differences. The instrument was validated by means of a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with a sample of 1041 Spanish (M_age = 15.0, SD = 0.88) and 1385 Italian (M_age = 14.8, SD = 0.87) adolescents, demonstrating factorial invariance across both country and gender. The best-fitting model was two-dimensional, with ambiguous and direct Sexual Cyber Perpetration (SCP) and Non-Consensual Sharing Perpetration (NCSP) factors. Co-involvement (i.e., involvement in both types of aggression) rates were 10.3% in Spain and 7.8% in Italy. No significant gender differences were found for involvement in either the overall scale (46.4% for girls, 44.1% for boys) or the NCSP subscale (3.0% girls vs. 2.2% boys), although significantly higher co-involvement was found among boys (7.7% girls vs. 10.1% boys). This study contributes to the existing body of research on online sexual harassment among peers in adolescence by presenting a new assessment tool that has been shown to be invariant between Spanish and Italian adolescents, as well as between boys and girls. Full article

Background: Research efforts are increasingly recognizing young girls’ experiences of technology facilitated sexual harassment, which includes sexual harassment via electronic technology and social networking sites. The current study aimed to qualitatively describe experiences of cyber sexual harassment (CSH), as well as its effects, among a sample of sexually active adolescent girls. Methods: Qualitative interviews (n = 25) were conducted among a sub-group of adolescent girls at risk for CSH (those who reported experiencing sexual or dating violence) who participated in a larger cross-sectional clinic-based study on sexual health. Participants were asked to describe their experiences or peers’ experiences of CSH. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and a thematic analysis approach was used to analyze qualitative findings. Results: Participants reported experiencing several different types of CSH, including (a) being forced or pressured to send sexual photos, (b) receiving unwanted sexual messages/photos, and (c) having sexual photos posted or shared without the sender’s permission. Findings also highlighted the consequences of experiencing CSH, including social isolation and negative effects on girls’ education. Conclusions: These scenarios of CSH described by participants highlight the multiple ways in which girls experience CSH. Our findings begin to inform the development of quantitative survey measures that reflect these specific types of CSH experiences reported by adolescents. The consistent use of such measures will be critical to establish the prevalence and consequences of CSH in future studies on this topic. Full article

Cyber sexual harassment has been increasing and has become a major public health problem among youths. Therefore, this study primarily aimed to evaluate the effects of a blended learning program on knowledge, attitudes, intention to cope with cyber sexual harassment, behavioral coping strategies, and cyber sexual harassment among female high-school students in Bangkok, Thailand. A quasi-experimental study with a two-group design was conducted from May 2021 to October 2021. A total of 112 students were recruited into either an intervention (n = 56) or a control (n = 56) group. The intervention group participated in a blended learning program for 12 weeks. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by both groups at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up. Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for data analysis. The mean score of the intervention group in knowledge, attitude, intention to cope with cyber sexual harassment, behavioral coping strategies, and cyber sexual harassment after completing the program and follow-up were significantly different from baseline and the control group (p < 0.05). A positive effect of the blended learning program was observed among female students. Therefore, this program can be useful for victims, supporting their self-confidence with decreased frequency of cyber sexual harassment experiences. Full article

As the contemporary phenomenon of school bullying has become more widespread, diverse, and frequent among adolescents in Korea, social big data may offer a new methodological paradigm for understanding the trends of school bullying in the digital era. This study identified Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) and Future Signals of 177 school bullying forms to understand the current and future bullying experiences of adolescents from 436,508 web documents collected between 1 January 2013, and 31 December 2017. In social big data, sexual bullying rapidly increased, and physical and cyber bullying had high frequency with a high rate of growth. School bullying forms, such as “group assault” and “sexual harassment”, appeared as Weak Signals, and “cyber bullying” was a Strong Signal. Findings considering five school bullying forms (verbal, physical, relational, sexual, and cyber bullying) are valuable for developing insights into the burgeoning phenomenon of school bullying. Full article