Worldwide 1 in 8 children are victims of online abuse

This article was last updated on May 27, 2024

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Worldwide 1 in 8 children are victims of online abuse

It is estimated that more than 300 million children worldwide fell victim to sexual exploitation and online sexual abuse last year. This is stated by the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh.

The research group published today first global estimate of the scale of the problem. The researchers discovered that one in eight children have been victims of making, sharing or showing sexually explicit images and videos without consent in the past year.

The same applies to solicitation, unwanted sexting and requests to perform sexual acts: one in eight children worldwide has also fallen victim to this in the past twelve months. Other crimes are sextortion, where the perpetrator asks for money in exchange for keeping sexually explicit images private, to the misuse of AI technology for deepfake videos and photos

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“This is a global pandemic that has been hidden for far too long. It is happening in every country, it is growing exponentially and it requires a global response,” said research institute director Paul Stanfield about the severity of the problem. “Child abuse material is so widespread that watchdogs and police organizations receive an average report of such files every second.”

Children in the United States are especially at high risk of becoming victims of online abuse. The study states that one in nine men in the US have harassed children online at some point. Many men might even be capable of physically abusing children if it could be kept secret, the researchers found.

The institute in Scotland is presenting their findings in research into online child abuse for the first time. They emphasize that the investigation is far from complete, but that due to the severity and impact of online child abuse, they do not “want to wait to present the perfect picture”.