The two-year Project Bridge, funded by the European Commission under the Internal Security Fund, brings universities and organisations from six European Union member states together to evaluate preventative interventions for people with sexual urges involving children and people who view child sexual abuse material.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse is a global problem of enormous proportions for which existing strategies have not proven to be sufficient to stop or even reduce the magnitude. The Council of Europe estimates that 1 in 5 children in Europe will fall victim.
Project Bridge is a unique international research project which aims to evaluate two new anonymous online programs for people who are concerned about their sexual thoughts or behaviours involving children, and people who view child sexual material. In Project Bridge, the efficacy, safety and appreciation of the two programs will be evaluated. In parallel, the personal experience associated with seeking care in different European countries for sexual urges involving children will be assessed.
The Project Bridge consortium includes universities and civil society organisations in six EU Member States, including Principal Investigator Region Stockholm and the Centre for Psychiatry Research at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden); Suojellaan Lapsia, Protect Children ry. (Finland); the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany); Academy of the Police Force in Bratislava (Slovakia); Jaume I University (Spain); and National Institute of Mental Health (Czech Republic). Project Bridge also has an Advisory Board with external experts.
Recruitment for Bridge runs from 30 June to 30 July 2023 and from 11 September 2023 to 21 April 2024.
Project Bridge is funded by the European Commission under the Internal Security Fund, in response to the Call for proposals on the prevention of child sexual abuse, assistance to victims of child sexual abuse and tools to detect child sexual abuse online (ISF-2021-TF1-AG-CYBER).
