A Year of Impact: Protect Children’s 2024 Highlights
- Protect Children
- 15.1.
- 9 min käytetty lukemiseen
Päivitetty: 31.1.
BLOGIKIRJOITUS
As we look back on 2024, Protect Children has made incredible strides in our mission to protect and empower children, families, and professionals across the globe. From groundbreaking research and vital collaborations to impactful educational initiatives, this year has highlighted the dedication and hard work of our team, and the support of the global community tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Join us as we reflect on some of our key milestones throughout the year.
📆 January
Protect Children started 2024 with the fantastic Educa Fair, Finland’s leading event for the education and training sector. In the event, we shared our educational materials for children, families, and professionals working with children for free. Thank you to everyone who came by our stand – you can also come see us at Educa Fair 2025 on January 24-25!
Find all our educational materials on the Resources page.

📆 February
At the beginning of February, our Deputy Director, Anna Ovaska, chaired and presented at a training event aimed at Maltese judges and lawyers to effectively prevent sexual violence against children.
This month, we also hosted a high-level Research Publication and Discussion Event at the European Parliament, where our team presented unprecedented results of the innovative research on tech platforms used by offenders to target children online and view and disseminate child sexual abuse material.
Later that month, we published the first research reports of our EU-funded Project 2KNOW. The Preliminary Findings Report presented insights into the motivations of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offenders, while the Language-Focused Report compared the findings across four languages.
We welcomed to the team Iina Vaaranen as a Communications Consultant, and Dr Rosie Marsh-Rossney on her doctoral international placement.
Finally, we had the honour of presenting at the Internet Forum Ministerial Meeting hosted by Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs.
📆 March
A highlight of the year was the appointment of our Executive Director, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen, as the INTERPOL Chair of the Victim Services and Offender Management Sub-Group. This appointment is a testament of Nina's dedication and unparalleled expertise in addressing the complexities of sexual violence against children from a holistic approach.
We were proud to host over 200 international colleagues at our annual ReDirection webinar, sharing and discussing the latest research and work to combat online child sexual abuse.
Two of our team members, Katariina Leivo and Tegan Insoll, travelled to Dublin, Ireland, to participate in Google’s Growing Up in the Digital Age event.
Later in the month, our specialists, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen, Anna Ovaska, Katariina Leivo, Tegan Insoll, and Valeriia Soloveva, travelled to Prague, Czech Republic, to attend meetings of several European Union funded projects dedicated to tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation.
📆 April
April was a month of fruitful collaborations! Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen, toured North America, visiting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Tim Tebow Foundation, and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, and joining the 7th Annual Tech with Heart Gala organised by the Child Rescue Coalition. Collaboration is the key – let’s protect children together!
Next, we held the Our Voice Survivor Group meeting in Helsinki where 18 survivors of childhood sexual violence from across Finland came together to share their experiences and to discuss future plans of the Our Voice Survivor Group.
On the research side of our work, our team contributed to the first large-scale study of the scale of child sexual abuse on the dark web. The research article was published in Scientific Reports by Nature Portfolio.
Finally, we launched the 2KNOW Webinar & Training Series to share the findings of the 2KNOW Project. Save the date! The final webinar will take place on 20 February, 2025 at 15:00-17:00 CET – follow us on social media to learn more.

📆 May
In May, we were excited to welcome a new team member, Noora Nieminen, who joined us as Research Assistant and Executive Assistant. We also welcomed three interns, Emily May, Anna Gumenyuk, and Rebecca Maria Nolan. Learn more about interning at Protect Children.
May was full of impactful events and international engagements! The month began with Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen delivering a keynote speech at the NOTA International Conference 2024 in Birmingham. Moreover, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen and Katariina Leivo led a workshop dedicated to organising and facilitating You are Enough™️ peer support groups for parents and guardians whose child has become a victim of sexual violence.
Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen travelled to Brussels to attend the 3rd Thematic Workshop on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention organised by the European Commission Joint Research Center and hosted by the Migration and Home Affairs department.
In mid-May, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen our Ambassador Scharliina Eräpuro took part in the EU Brave Youth Cohot retreat in Warsaw organised by the Brave Movement.
Project Arachnid’s Global Analyst Network meeting organised by Canadian Centre for Child Protection was held in Stockholm. Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen and Noora Kuisma joined critical discussions on tackling CSAM.
We participated in PIER24, the annual conference of the International Policing and Public Protection Research Institute. Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen, Katariina Leivo, Tegan Insoll, and Anna Ovaska presented our latest work and insights, fostering valuable discussions on innovative strategies in child protection.
A special highlight of the month was Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen being honoured with the ‘Most Significant Contribution to the Global Response to Online CSA Award’ at the 2024 Excellence in Online Protection awards – an incredible recognition of her dedication to protecting children worldwide.
Another exciting moment in May was when our ReDirection program was selected to undergo a landmark evaluation by Prevention Global. The initiative will showcase effective approaches to the prevention of child sexual abuse perpetration.
📆 June
In June, we released two important statements addressing online child sexual abuse and exploitation in France and Poland, focusing on the findings from French and Polish responses to the Global Our Voice Survivor Survey and surveys of individuals searching for CSAM online.
We also published, in collaboration with Red PaPaz, the ReDirection ‘Spanish-Speaking CSAM Users in the Dark Web’ report in Spanish.
A significant milestone took place this month! Protect Children was granted Observer Status in the Lanzarote Committee, during its 42nd plenary meeting held in Strasbourg in 11-13 June 2024. This status highlights our organisations' dedication and ongoing efforts to prevent and end child sexual abuse and exploitation.
In June, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen participated in the MOORE Envision 2024 Conference in Washington, D.C., where she presented Protect Children’s research-based holistic method to prevent all forms of sexual violence against children and discussed our ReDirection program at the Prevention Global Initiative panel.
📆 July - August
During the summer months, our team took a well-deserved break, but our commitment to protecting children remained strong and we joined some key events during July and August!
Protect Children joined the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abuse (NOTA) as a member! This was an exciting moment for us, as NOTA is a distinguished multi-professional organisation for people working to prevent sexual violence and abuse.
On 18-21 August, Katariina Leivo attended the International Society Prevention of Child Abuse (ISPCAN) Congress 2024 in Uppsala, where she shared insights from organising and facilitating You are Enough™️peer support groups for parents whose child has fallen victim to sexual violence.
In the end of August, we joined the high-level meeting at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland (Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriö), “Preventing Violence through Legislation: An Urgent Need?”.
📆 September
In September, we welcomed two interns, Cayla Miller and Emma Corrêa de Mora, to the team.
Our Head of Research, Tegan Insoll, presented newly published findings from our research at the Stanford Trust & Safety Research Conference. The study aimed to understand how we can encourage people at risk of offending against children to seek help, instead of committing crimes.
We also published a research report seeking to understand the different drivers of online child sexual abuse offending, with survey data gathered in Project 2KNOW.
Moreover, Protect Children organised once again the popular Stop, Slow & Go digital safety skills workshops™ for children aged 5-6 and 7-9 in Finland. In these workshops, children learn and practice digital safety skills through practical and interactive tasks.
Later in September, Protect Children Specialists working in the global Project Arachnid network reached the amount of 2 million analysed individual images and videos depicting sexual violence against children. The remarkable work of our dedicated analysts has led to over 1.3 million automatic removal requests to online service providers, offering new hope to victims and survivors of CSA and breaking the cycle of abuse and revictimisation.
📆 October
In the beginning of October, our Specialist Eva Diaz Bethencourt presented key findings from the Global Our Voice Survivor Survey at the Third International & Interdisciplinary Congress of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (BHIDAPA). Eva took part in the roundtable “Why Survivors Stay Silent and Suffer in Silence”, organised by the Justice Initiative, where she presented key insights from Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian responses. Moreover, the event hosted the SHAME European Stories Exhibition that presents interviews with almost 100 survivors of child sexual abuse across Europe.
During October, as part of the Project 2KNOW, we published the You Are Enough™ Evaluation Summary, presenting insights from parents and caregivers of child victims of online sexual abuse who participated in the You Are Enough™ Parental Peer Support Groups in Finland and Ireland. The evaluation summary presents invaluable insights on the long-lasting impact of child sexual abuse on children and families and on the importance of receiving peer support during lengthy criminal proceedings and healing processes.
In addition, we published two guides as part of the Project 2KNOW to offer support and guidance for parents and caregivers: a Supportive Guide for Parents of Children Affected by Online Sexual Abuse and an Online Safety Guide for Parents (“Not Just a Device”).
In 2024, we made it a priority to engage with our national decision makers here in Finland and provide them with up-to-date information and recommendations from our work. In October, we had the fantastic opportunity to present our latest research results on perpetration-prevention with the Finnish Ministry of the Interior.

📆 November
We started off the month with the Stop, Slow & Go body boundaries workshops for children aged 5-6 and 7-9 where children learn about body boundaries and body safety through empowering tasks and activities.
On 11 November, Nina Vaaranen-Valkonen joined in the opening of the SHAME European Stories Exhibition in Thessaloniki, organised by the Justice Initiative Greece Hub. During this event, Nina shared key findings from the Global Our Voice Survivor Survey.
In November, we published the Our Voice Global Report: Experiences of Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Across 29 Languages that presents invaluable insights from 22,285 victims and survivors worldwide who have shared their experiences through the Global Our Voice Survivor Survey.
Moreover, we translated information leaflets, produced by 5WAVES, to address and raise awareness of sibling sexual abuse (SSA) and sibling sexual trauma (SST). The leaflets are available in English, Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish.
Later in November, Senior Specialist, Katariina Leivo, joined the fourth edition of the Hague Human Rights Film Festival. Leivo took part in a panel discussion where she highlighted the dangers children encounter online as well as the responsibility of adults to create and uphold safer online environments for children.
Furthermore, as proud members of the Safe Online network, we have welcomed the opportunity to participate in several convenings of the Data for Change initiative. The initiative brings together a community of experts and partners to build a more reliable, comparable, and comprehensive data ecosystem on online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
📆 December
In the beginning of December, Eva Díaz Bethencourt participated in the International Conference “The Council of Europe’s Fight Against Child Abuse in Institutions in Europe” organised by the Justice Initiative at the Council of Europe. Addressing over 100 ministers, ambassadors, political representatives, child protection organisations, and survivors of abuse across Europe, Díaz Bethencourt amplified the voices of 22,285 survivors from the Global Our Voice Survivor Survey, highlighting the urgent need for CoE Member States to implement Resolution 2533 and strengthen prevention, support, and healing systems.
In December, we published two survivor poems, ‘I Mourn’ and ‘Survivor’, that highlight the diverse and complex experiences of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
On 5-6 December, our Head of Research, Tegan Insoll, travelled to Leiden, The Netherlands, to present our Project 2KNOW research study findings at the Child Sexual Abuse Reduction Research Network workshop.
We concluded the year with the final meeting of Project Bridge, allowing us to reflect on the progress the project has made over the past two years. Together with international partners from six EU countries, and financial support from the European Commission, the project has made significant advancements generating new evidence on what works to prevent violence against children. Stay tuned for the results of the research, which will be published in 2025.
Supporting Families, Children, and Professionals
Overall, in 2024, we held four different You Are Enough Peer Support Groups for parents and caregivers of child victims of sexual violence: two groups for parents of victims of close offenders, one for online crimes, and one extension group.
Moreover, in 2024, a total of 6,329 children (5-9-year-olds) attended our remote Stop, Slow & Go workshops for practicing digital safety skills and body boundaries, and we trained over 620 professionals on the topic.
Looking Ahead: Continuing Our Commitment to Protecting Children
As we move into 2025, we remain deeply committed to expanding our reach and strengthening our efforts to keep children safe. We will continue to focus on empowering families, training professionals, and delivering effective prevention and support programs. We are excited to further our research and continue collaborating with international partners to drive meaningful change.
With new projects on the horizon, we aim to make an even greater impact in protecting children from harm, amplifying the voices of survivors, and creating a safer environment for future generations.
Let's Protect Children together!