SA teens tout for sex business on OnlyFans

Local teens as young as 13 are soliciting for subscribers on global, adults-only content sites such as OnlyFans, offering services ranging from foot-fetish pictures to live sex acts on video.

The trend has emerged as countries across the globe grapple with how to stem the proliferation of sexual cybercrimes involving children. Some have gone as far as imposing a complete ban on social media for teens under the age of 16.

Cases of South African girls selling sexualised content, or receiving offers to produce it, are emerging almost every week, says Danie van Loggerenberg, CEO and founder of the National Centre for Child Protection. He says children bypass age-limit restrictions, and OnlyFans is just part of the picture.

Van Loggerenberg has encountered cases involving Instagram, Discord, TikTok and Snapchat — which is popular thanks to its disappearing-messages feature — and TikTok. Some teens tout for business with adverts on social media — right under the noses of their unsuspecting parents.

Child-protection experts say minors are using mainstream social media and messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram to find customers, advertise content and arrange payment, exposing themselves to grooming, exploitation and blackmail.

Van Loggerenberg has spent 16 years working on online safety and children’s rights. He engages between 1.2-million and 1.5-million schoolchildren a year through talks, training and education, and also provides follow-up counselling.

In a recent case, a Centurion woman discovered her 13-year-old daughter was selling explicit videos and livestreams of herself — and had even involved her eight-year-old brother in some of her videos

He says not a day has passed in the last four years in which he has not received a report or complaint involving naked images of an underage child.

While some have been coerced, “there are children out there blatantly advertising themselves”, he says.

Minors generally use cash-send services, with payments sent to their cellphone numbers and withdrawn from ATMs using a PIN. In other cases, money is paid into bank accounts belonging to the children themselves, their parents or older relatives.

In a recent case, Van Loggerenberg was contacted by a Centurion woman who had discovered her 13-year-old daughter was selling explicit videos and livestreams of herself — and had even involved her eight-year-old brother in some of her videos.

An online advert on Instagram was posted by two girls, age 14 and 15, offering “discreet and private” services to clients. (Supplied) In another case, three teenage sisters living with drug-addicted parents had begun producing sexualised content for online customers, with payments in foreign currency transferred into their parents’ bank account.

He was also recently alerted by a mother of two girls aged 14 and 15 advertising on Instagram a “discreet and private” R50 package for “five minutes of custom audio (mommy ASMR ) and individual toe pics from both creators”.

In another case, a 13-year-old girl on OnlyFans bragged that “I made R30,000 in my best month so far”.

Many of the teens were hungry for digital popularity and would “literally sell their souls in a quest to have strangers think they’re cool”.

Children move across platforms, messaging services and payment mechanisms incredibly easily. The risk doesn’t disappear simply because one particular platform says you need to be 18—  Anna Collard, cybersecurity specialist

Cybersecurity specialist Anna Collard, senior vice-president of content strategy at KnowBe4 Africa, said that if the cases in question were verified, they demonstrated the limitations of age restrictions.

“Children move across platforms, messaging services and payment mechanisms incredibly easily. The risk doesn’t disappear simply because one particular platform says you need to be 18,” she said.

While many teens describe what they are doing as a “victimless crime”, social-justice activist Shaheda Omar said a child’s apparent willingness did not remove an adult’s responsibility to protect them from sexual exploitation.

“The fact that a girl says, ‘I’m doing this willingly’, ‘I’m making money’ or ‘Nobody knows who I am’ does not necessarily mean she is exercising an informed, developmentally mature choice.”

The harm could be psychological, developmental, relational and even lifelong, she said.

She added that hiding a child’s face did not eliminate the risk of identification, blackmail, coercion or future exposure.

“There is an important distinction between agency and protection. A teenager may actively choose to produce and sell sexual images and genuinely believe she is making an empowered financial decision. We should listen to her and respect her voice, but that does not mean adults, platforms or customers are entitled to participate in the sexual exploitation of a child,” Omar said.

“South African law is clear about the seriousness of sexualised material involving children. The Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996 criminalises creating, possessing and distributing material constituting child pornography, and specifically seeks to protect children from sexual exploitation.”

But money is not necessarily the main motivation for children’s forays into the online sex industry.

A lot of them do it for attention: the thrill and the feeling of power they have by thinking they hold the cards over adult men—  Dayna Rowland, specialist wellness counsellor

Specialist wellness counsellor Dayna Rowland, who has encountered cases involving girls engaging with men online, said attention, excitement and a sense of power could also play a role.

“A lot of them do it for attention: the thrill and the feeling of power they have by thinking they hold the cards over adult men. Yes, there are some desperate for money, but there are other factors too. I had one girl tell me she was so angry with her father for leaving them that this was a way she could hurt him,” Rowland said.

Digital investigations specialist Jessica Shelver, founder of The Digital Bodyguard, said that, while she had not personally encountered cases of underage girls earning money from sexualised content, the allegations highlighted how serious the online-safety problem had become.

“The risks go far beyond who children are talking to online. We also need to pay attention to what they are seeing, what they are being encouraged to do, and whether money or other incentives are part of it,” she said.

OnlyFans has been repeatedly accused of allowing underage users to set up accounts and present explicit material on its platform.

Though the site says it vets every user and all content to keep children off its porn-driven webpages, a 2024 Reuters investigation of US police and court files found complaints that hundreds of sexually explicit videos and images of minors — from toddlers to teens — appeared on the platform.

And in 2021, the children’s commissioner for England said OnlyFans needed to do more to prevent underage users from accessing the site after a BBC investigation revealed underage children were successfully bypassing safety checks by using fake identification (including a 14-year-old who used a grandmother’s passport) to set up creator accounts and sell explicit videos.

Police spokesperson Lt Col Amanda van Wyk said the recent arrests and seizures of child sexual abuse material illustrated the “unwavering commitment [of the SAPS] to protect children by pursuing those who threaten their safety and security”.

“It is an offence to possess, access, manufacture and distribute child sexual abuse material according to the Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996 and the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment Act [32 of 1997], alongside the Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020.”