Youngsters on the line

She approached Phyllis Chan Kwok-ling, a specialist in psychiatry and honorary clinical associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Psychiatry.

Chan recalls that the girl, then aged around 16, had exhibited severe social withdrawal and self-blame. The victim also had to grapple with intimacy issues, experiencing intense discomfort in her interactions with other boys.

In handling the case, Chan says she was overcome by a deep sense of compassion.

The psychiatrist lamented the lack of adequate education about online sexual abuse in society, causing the girl to underestimate the dangers on the Internet. It saddened her that nobody respected the girl's emotions, including her mother and the officers involved in the probe. What was particularly disheartening was that she had come across a number of similar cases in the past few years.

According to Hong Kong Police Force statistics released in March this year, a growing number of children in the special administrative region had experienced cyber sexual violence over the past few years. There was a 15.4 percent surge in sexual assault cases linked to children's online activities, with 45 cases reported last year, compared to 39 in 2022.

More than 90 percent of the young victims of online sexual abuse and child pornography cases were female. The most affected age group ranged from 12 to 16 years, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the total number of victims. There were 443 cases of extortion arising from naked chatting and 456 cases of compensated dating fraud targeting students in 2013. These accounted for 20.9 percent and 21.8 percent, respectively, of the total number of cases without age limitations. The youngest child victim was just nine years old.