Monterrey (Mexico). From 24 to 26 February 2025, as part of the International Internet Security Month, the IV International Meeting “Te Protejo Mexico” (I Protect You Mexico) was held in Monterrey, a forum that brought together experts, International authorities and organizations with the aim of strengthening the prevention of and fight against child pornography in digital environments.
For three days, cybersecurity specialists, representatives from digital platforms, and government agencies explored strategies to create a safer environment for children and adolescents.
Among the participants there were about 25 representatives of the Salesian communities, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of Mother of the Church Province (MMO), general Directors, teachers, psychologists, and parents who carry out their mission daily with the commitment to ensure secure digital environments in their own realities.
At the opening of the event, the importance of working together to ensure digital security was underlined.
Speakers included Chris Hughes, Director of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) – a British non-profit foundation that has been working since 1996 to remove child pornography images from the net – stressed the need for collaborative networks to identify risks and protect children. “We need a network to beat the network. The information we collect becomes data services for industry and law enforcement internationally.”
John Shehan, Vice President of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), highlighted the crucial role of emergency telephone lines in strengthening legislation and global protection of children.
From the Mexican Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, Israel Agüero highlighted the joint work with Te Protejo Mexico to investigate reported cases and remove online child pornography. “This collaboration is crucial, because it allows us to be more efficient in assisting victims and reducing the time of investigations,” he affirmed.
The event was also attended by former professional golfer and former world number one, Lorena Ochoa, who highlighted the importance of alliances in this fight. “It is impossible to do it alone. The ability to work as a team, to anticipate and prevent is key to tackling the problem of child abuse online.”
During the meeting, Gabriela Chamorro, of INTERPOL’s Child Crime Unit, stressed the need for a collaborative ecosystem between the private sector, international and governmental bodies, and civil society organizations: “This chain of collaboration is what will allow us to protect children and adolescents in the digital environment.”
One of the most significant moments was the presentation by Eduardo Cruz Moguel, member of the Board of INHOPE – the global network that deals with the fight against illegal content online, in order to combat sexual abuse of children on the Internet – who presented alarming data on the growth of child pornography on the Internet. In 2024, the organization received almost 2.5 million reports, an increase of 218% compared to the previous year. Of these reports, more than 1.6 million contained child abuse and exploitation material.
As part of the initiatives presented, TikTok and the PAS Foundation, an educational platform that promotes a culture of child abuse prevention, launched a guide for mothers, fathers, and guardians with tools for digital security, as parental synchronization. A guide for teachers with good practices to generate a safe digital environment in the educative environment was also presented.
In addition, Ana de Saracho, founder of Synertics, gave the conference, “Emotions also count in the digital environment”, where she stressed the need to educate children and adolescents on the balance between “face-to-face” and virtual relationships. “All the protections that we put in place in the physical world to keep our children safe, we forgot to put them in place in the digital world. It is crucial to find a balance so that our children have the best of both worlds,” she explained.
Since its first edition, the international meeting “I protect you Mexico” has become a reference point in the fight against digital violence against children and adolescents. In this fourth edition, as well as giving visibility to the problem, concrete solutions were presented with the participation of all sectors of society.
