Rethinking approach to child sexual abuse material: The case for proactive detection and digital forensics

By Daniel Kwaku Ntiamoah ADDAI

Why legislation alone is failing to stop child sexual abuse material—and how technology, forensic readiness, and national coordination can better protect children online

Why must Ghana rethink its approach to child sexual abuse material in a digital age?

Child sexual abuse material is no longer a crime confined to hidden physical spaces or obscure networks. It is now deeply embedded in the digital platforms that millions of Ghanaians use daily—social media, cloud storage services, messaging applications, and personal smartphones.

As internet access expands and digital devices become more affordable, children’s exposure to online risks has increased at a pace that traditional legal responses have struggled to match.

Ghana’s response has largely emphasized legislation and criminal penalties, assuming that abuse will first be discovered and reported before enforcement begins. Child sexual abuse material is created, shared, deleted, and re?uploaded at extraordinary speed.

By the time a complaint is filed, the digital evidence may already be lost, encrypted, or hosted outside Ghana’s jurisdiction. This fundamental mismatch between the dynamics of digital crime and reactive legal processes makes it necessary to rethink how the country protects children online.

What exactly is child sexual abuse material, and how has it evolved over time?

Child sexual abuse material refers to any visual, audio, or digital content that depicts the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a child. The term is deliberately used instead of “child pornography” to emphasize that such material is not consensual content but documentary evidence of abuse. Every image or video represents a real victim whose harm is repeated each time the material is viewed or shared.

Historically, such material circulated through physical media such as photographs and videotapes, making detection largely dependent on physical searches. That era has passed. Today, child sexual abuse material is predominantly digital, distributed through social media platforms, encrypted messaging applications, peer?to?peer networks, and cloud storage services.

Some abuse is now live?streamed, leaving behind only technical traces rather than permanent files. This evolution has transformed child sexual abuse material into a technologically complex, borderless crime that cannot be addressed effectively through traditional policing alone.

How widespread is child sexual abuse material, and what do global trends reveal?

Global data shows that child sexual abuse material is one of the fastest?growing categories of online crime. The United States National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported receiving more than 36 million reports of suspected child sexual abuse material in 2023 alone, representing an increase of over 300 percent compared to 2019. Most of these reports originated from technology platforms using automated detection tools rather than from individual complaints.

These figures reveal a critical insight: countries that are making progress are those that rely on proactive detection, centralized reporting, and rapid evidence preservation. Detection increasingly occurs through technology, while human reporting plays a secondary role. For Ghana, which relies largely on complaint?driven enforcement, these global trends highlight a growing gap between how abuse is identified internationally and how it is addressed locally.

Table 1: Global child sexual abuse material reporting trends

Metric	Value
Reports received globally (2023)	~36 million
Increase since 2019	>300%
Primary reporting sources	Social media and cloud platforms

What does Ghana’s online landscape look like—and what does that mean for children’s safety?

Ghana’s digital environment has expanded rapidly over the past decade. UNICEF Ghana reported in 2022 that more than 90 percent of children aged 8–17 had accessed the internet, primarily through smartphones and internet cafés. Over half of these children indicated that they experienced little or no adult supervision while online. This level of unsupervised access significantly increases exposure to harmful content, including sexual material.

Internet penetration in Ghana more than doubled between 2015 and 2023, according to data from the National Communications Authority and the World Bank. As children’s online presence grows, so too does the likelihood that Ghana is exposed to the same child sexual abuse material risks documented globally. The lack of comprehensive national reporting statistics does not indicate low prevalence; rather, it reflects limited detection and measurement capacity.

Table 2: Ghana digital exposure indicators relevant to child safety

Indicator	Value
Children (8–17) who have accessed the internet	~90%
Primary access device	Smartphones
Limited or no adult supervision online	>50%
Growth in internet penetration (2015–2023)	More than doubled

What is Ghana’s current legal and institutional approach to child sexual abuse material?

Ghana has criminalized the production, possession, and distribution of child sexual abuse material through multiple legal provisions, including those reinforced by the Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038). Institutions such as the Ghana Police Service and the Cyber Security Authority have established specialized units to address cybercrime and child online protection. Policy frameworks and public awareness initiatives further demonstrate political recognition of the problem.

However, the current approach remains largely reactive. Responsibilities are spread across institutions without a single national mechanism for centralized reporting, triage, and coordination. Enforcement depends heavily on complaints, isolated investigations, or incidental discoveries rather than systematic detection. While laws and institutions exist, the operational pathway from online detection to courtroom prosecution remains weakly defined.

Why do Ghana’s existing laws and institutions still struggle to stop child sexual abuse material?

The primary challenge Ghana faces is not legislative absence but operational design. Child sexual abuse material circulates in real time, yet enforcement processes move slowly and rely on manual intervention. Without proactive detection mechanisms, evidence is often lost before authorities can act.

Coordination gaps further weaken enforcement. Effective investigations require seamless interaction between regulators, law enforcement, prosecutors, and service providers. In practice, these interactions are fragmented, resulting in delays, duplicated effort, and evidentiary weaknesses. Legal ambiguity around definitions, investigative thresholds, and evidence handling compounds the problem, creating uncertainty that offenders exploit.

What have successive governments and security agencies done so far—and why has it not been enough?

Successive governments have demonstrated intent through the creation of specialized cybercrime units, national cybersecurity policies, and periodic public awareness campaigns. These steps represent meaningful progress. However, most interventions have focused on institutional presence and legal prohibition rather than on building integrated, technology?enabled enforcement systems.

As a result, security agencies often operate reactively, responding to isolated cases rather than disrupting abuse networks systematically. Limited access to automated detection tools, fragmented mandates, and reliance on manual forensic processes constrain effectiveness. The gap, therefore, is not one of effort but of capability and integration.

What would a truly proactive national framework against child sexual abuse material look like?

A proactive framework would shift Ghana’s posture from reaction to prevention and early detection. Central to this approach is a single national reporting and triage system capable of receiving reports from the public, technology platforms, and international partners. Such a system would prioritize cases, preserve digital evidence immediately, and route actionable intelligence efficiently.

Proactive frameworks also rely on preventive detection technologies, particularly hash?based matching to identify known child sexual abuse material before it is redistributed. When governed responsibly, these tools reduce re?victimization while enabling rapid intervention. National coordination ensures that detection flows seamlessly into investigation, forensic analysis, and prosecution.

Table 3: Reactive versus proactive approaches to child sexual abuse material

Dimension	Reactive model	Proactive model
Detection	Complaints	Automated and centralized
Evidence preservation	Often delayed	Immediate
Forensics	Case?dependent	Standardized
Prosecution	Fragile	Defensible

 

Why is digital forensics central to prosecuting child sexual abuse material cases?

Detection alone does not secure convictions. Digital forensics transforms leads into admissible evidence by establishing possession, access, intent, and attribution. In child sexual abuse material cases, forensic analysis of devices, cloud accounts, metadata, and logs is essential to reconstruct timelines and link activity to individuals.

In Ghana, forensic investigations are often constrained by uncertainty around lawful authority, delayed access to cloud data, and inconsistent evidence?handling standards. Without forensics?by?design, cases risk collapse during prosecution. Strong forensic capability ensures that detection results in justice rather than stalled investigations.

What legal and policy reforms are needed to strengthen digital forensics in child sexual abuse material cases?

Effective reform requires explicit authority for rapid evidence preservation, standardized digital search and seizure procedures, and nationally recognized forensic standards. Laws must enable investigators to freeze cloud data quickly, conduct targeted device acquisition lawfully, and present evidence that courts can rely upon confidently.

Policy must also address laboratory standards, chain of custody, and examiner welfare. Clear forensic laws protect both investigators and citizens by ensuring proportionality, transparency, and due process while strengthening prosecutions.

How can a national campaign against child sexual abuse material support detection and prevention?

A national campaign should normalize reporting and educate the public on digital realities. Parents, teachers, and young people must understand what child sexual abuse material is and how to report it through a single national channel. Awareness without operational capacity undermines trust; effective campaigns must be tied to real investigative capability.

What must Ghana do next to effectively protect children from child sexual abuse material online?

Ghana must move from symbolic compliance to operational effectiveness. This requires pairing laws with proactive detection, embedding digital forensics into enforcement, and coordinating institutions through a unified national framework. Protecting children online is ultimately a matter of capability, not rhetoric. When systems work, harm is reduced, justice is served, and children are safer.

>>>the writer is a cyber forensics, fraud investigation and audit threat combat. He can be reached via [email protected]

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