A survey by international children's charity Save the Children has found a large proportion of Finnish 11 to 17-year-olds have experienced grooming online.
According to the survey, almost 80 percent of children have received explicit images from an adult while 75 percent have been asked to send them.
More than one in ten Finnish children experience this kind of sexually explicit behaviour on a weekly basis, the survey found.
"This shows that grooming is very common," said Save the Children's Senior Child Protection Adviser Tanja Simola.
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One third of children responding to the study said they had been offered rewards in return for sexual acts or messages. The survey found that adults offered money, cigarettes and alcohol in return for explicit images or physical meetings.
Nine percent of children who experienced grooming said they had agreed to a video call with the perpetrator, and six percent said they had met them in person.
"Grooming" refers to an act in which an adult contacts a child with the intent of committing sexual acts. Engaging in such activity with a child below the age of 16 is illegal in Finland.
Save the Children's survey was carried out between February and March of this year. The online survey was sent out to 499 schools nationwide and received almost 1,800 responses.
Why do children talk to strangers?
The survey also included questions about why children engaged with strangers online.
Over half of respondents said they did it because they were bored, and 40 percent said the reason was curiosity. A third of children said they did not understand what the reality of the situation was. A quarter cited loneliness or not daring to refuse to talk.
One in five said they were looking for a friend while 15 percent said they were interested in sex and sexuality.
Save the Children's Tanja Simola said that curiosity about sexuality was a normal part of a child's development. Many children may find it easier to talk about the issue anonymously online rather than with their parents.
"It may be that the child has not received enough information about sex or sexuality at home or from school. Sex education may be lacking, nonexistent or may not address the issues the child is interested in," she said.
Recognising grooming
Most respondents to the survey said they felt they could recognise grooming behaviours. Over 70 percent said they knew if they were being groomed and more than 90 percent said they considered sexually explicit messages to count as grooming.
"Children recognise a grooming situation when it contains explicitly sexual elements, but we should consider how well a child can recognise those situations where such behaviour is not immediately present," said Simola.
Contributing to the risk is the fact that children may not always be able to apply such awareness in practice, she said.
"For example, many said that if such a situation arises they block the message sender and tell a friend, when really they should take screenshots of the incident and things like the sender's name and tell an adult," Simola added.
Tell an adult
More than half of survey respondents said they had told someone about the grooming they had encountered. More than 90 percent had told a friend, while one in five had told their mother. By contrast, fewer than ten percent had told their fathers, and five percent had told school staff.
The survey asked children to explain their reasons for not telling anyone about grooming they encountered. Three-quarters said it was because they had not taken the matter seriously.
"If it is the case that children did not recognise in the moment that it is something harmful, it would be important for adults to consider that," Simola said.
45 percent of children responding to the survey said they didn't think telling someone would help and 35 percent said they didn't think anyone would care. One third said they were too ashamed to report what had happened.
"Shame can be a significant factor, especially if they have been told at home that they have to be careful and told that they should not share personal information with people online. A child may fear their parents will be angry if they have already done it once," Simola explained.
For adults, Save the Children's advice is to bring up conversations about grooming as part of everyday discussions.
"When an adult is asking a child about how school or their activities are going, it could include talking about news stories online, asking what kind of apps the child uses and who they're playing with or communicating with online," Simola said.
Anyone can report grooming or explicit material featuring children found online to Save the Children via the charity's online Nettivihje service (link in Finnish).