Modern digital technology has created new opportunities for perpetrators to sexually exploit children, leading to a significant rise in online child sexual abuse crimes globally. As with other forms of child sexual abuse, children may find it difficult to disclose their experiences. This and other aspects of the online nature of the crimes have implications for how children should be encountered and interviewed in the forensic setting. This training will provide:
- A summary of the current research on children’s disclosures of online CSA experiences.
- An understanding of the different forms of online child sexual abuse.
- Insights into recent studies on how children themselves wish to be heard.
- Challenges faced by legal practitioners and the potential impact of forensic interviews on children’s well-being.
- Suggestions for conducting victim-sensitive interviews when investigating online child sexual abuse cases using an adapted version of the well-established NICHD-R protocol, specifically modified for the unique challenges of online child sexual abuse cases.
The training will consist of two lectures of 1 ca 45 minutes each, followed by commentaries and a Q & A.
Meet the instructors:
Dr Julia Korkman
Dr Julia Korkman is a Senior Programme Officer at HEUNI (The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations) as well as Professor of Practice with the Faculty of Law, and Adjunct Professor in Legal Psychology at Åbo Akademi and co-leads the legal psychology research group LePÅ at Åbo Akademi. She is specialized memory in the legal context and has conducted research on among other things investigative interviewing, decision making in legal contexts, investigating alleged cases of crimes against children, eyewitness identifications, factors associated with rape victims’ tendencies to make police reports, psychological coercion in court cases of human trafficking, and asylum processes as co-PI of the research group PsychAID. At HEUNI,
Dr Korkman is responsible for the planning and implementation of HEUNI’s EU and other international and national projects, especially regarding the rights of victims of crime, virtual justice, and developing the criminal justice process in an evidence-based and humane way. Julia is the current president of the European Association of Psychology and Law and a member of several other expert networks. She has received several prices for her work, including the Academic Excellence Award by the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG), the Science Communication Prize 2025 by The Finnish Association of Science Editors and Journalists and the Finland-Swedish Psychologist of the Year Award 2025 by the Finnish Psychological Association. In 2022 she authored the popular-scientific book Memory dependent (Fi: Muistin varassa, SWE: Minnets makt) about the role of memory in legal processes, which has been widely acclaimed and also received several awards.
Julia is also a performing and recording singer who occasionally also sings about crimes.
Dr Malin Joleby
Malin Joleby, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher and research group leader in the Rahm/Joleby research group at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Her main areas of expertise are forensic psychology, developmental psychology, and psychiatry, with a specialization in research on sexual abuse.
Dr. Joleby works on both perpetrator prevention and victimology. She plays a key role in the Prevent It treatment program, aimed at individuals at risk of committing sexual offenses against children, and leads studies on the psychological impact of technology-assisted child sexual abuse. She is also involved in research on forensic interviews with preschoolers and children witnessing domestic violence.
Her doctoral dissertation was recognized as “Dissertation of the Year” at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, and she has been nominated for the Swedish National Committee’s award for young researchers in psychology.
PROMISE Elpis
“PROMISE Elpis” is a two-year project co-funded by the EU through its Internal Security Fund (ISF) program. The project aims to ensure the rights of presumed/identified child victims of online sexual violence to child-friendly justice, protection from violence and exploitation, and a safe path to recovery. The project is led by Charité, in partnership with Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), Child Circle, AvBIT, Childhood Haus Heidelberg (UKHD), Children 1st, HEUNI, and National Children’s Advocacy Center USA.