Adolescent online child sexual abuse material offending in Turkey: Psychosocial and forensic profiles from NCMEC reports and child protection implications.

BACKGROUND

Adolescent involvement in online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) poses a growing child-protection challenge worldwide. Reports from the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) often trigger investigations, yet psychosocial profiles in non-Western contexts remain underexamined.

OBJECTIVE

To describe psychosocial, clinical, and offense-related characteristics of adolescents referred after NCMEC reports in Turkey and to explore associations with offense patterns.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

A retrospective cohort of 35 adolescents (97.1 % male; mean age = 14.2 years) evaluated by the national forensic psychiatry board between January 2021 and August 2025.

METHODS

Forensic reports were coded for demographics, family background, psychosocial context, offense type/platform, and motivations. Descriptive statistics summarized profiles, and group differences were tested.

RESULTS

Most adolescents lived with both parents (85.7 %), had no psychiatric history (80.0 %), and reported no substance use (74.3 %). CSAM involvement was predominantly distribution/sharing (97.1 %), while production was rare (2.9 %). Platforms included Instagram (14.3 %), Discord (8.6 %), Facebook (8.6 %), and WhatsApp (5.7 %), though in many cases platform was unknown (62.9 %). Motivations included unawareness of illegality (25.7 %), peer influence (20.0 %), and sexual or digital curiosity (14.3 % each). A small subgroup (11.4 %) demonstrated co-occurring descriptive characteristics across the social, clinical, and online-behavior domains. Motivation did not predict distribution/production, and platform use did not differ significantly by age. Among the materials detected, 94.3 % depicted prepubescent children, and no cases involved self-generated or peer-produced imagery.

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescent CSAM offending in this context appears shaped more by developmental immaturity, peer dynamics, and digital environments than by entrenched psychopathology. Prevention may support legal awareness education, interventions targeting peer norms, and digital literacy within child-protection and school systems.