KEY POINTS:
New Zealand children as young as 12 are willingly sending inappropriate images of themselves to adults contacted on the internet, a conference has been told.
An internet safety conference in Queenstown this week discussing "complicit victims" was told of a 15-year-old girl who sent 300 photos of herself to an internet "boyfriend" she had never met.
He passed on the images to others.
The girl told her parents the pictures were going to only one person and were then "gone".
"These children are very savvy about the technology ... but have no idea about the impact their actions could have on their lives when they are 25," NetSafe operations manager Lee Chisholm told the conference.
Often, children who had been sexually abused were most vulnerable to becoming "complicit victims".
However, it had to be remembered that the children were still victims.
American psychologist and associate professor of early childhood education at the University of South Florida Ilene Berson said about 95 per cent of sex crimes in the United States were "non-forceable" - the young person knowing in advance the intention of a "real world" meeting with their abuser.
"They do not have the capacity to think through their actions thoughtfully ... they're impulsive," Prof Berson said.
Free advice on children's internet safety was available on 0508NETSAFE.
- NZPA