More than 300 million children are victims of online sexual abuse: new report — EducationHQ

Last year, approximately one in eight children worldwide (approximately 302 million children) was the victim of being recorded, shared and exposed to sexual images and videos without their consent.

In addition, it is estimated that one in eight children worldwide was a victim of online advertising in the past year, for example through unwanted conversations about sexual content, including sexting without consent, unwanted sexual questions and unwanted requests for sexual acts by adults or other young people.

Crimes can also take the form of “sextortion,” where perpetrators demand money from their victims to keep images secret, thus abusing AI deepfake technology.

The findings were published today in a report by the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute at the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with UNSW Sydney. The report is part of the first global index on the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, which is based on three indicators: victimisation, perpetration and the availability of child sexual abuse material online.

The report is based on data from over 36 million reports to leading police organisations, surveys and analysis of 125 studies, including the work of criminologist Professor Michael Salter from the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.

Salter, the founding director of the new Childlight East Asia and Pacific Hub at UNSW, said the global index aims to provide a universal measure of child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.

“We have never had a globally agreed baseline on the level of child sexual abuse and exploitation to understand the scale of the problem, track efforts to curb it and hold governments accountable,” Salter said.

“By shedding light on the extent and nature of child sexual exploitation and abuse, we hope this research can be a catalyst for change to keep children safe.”

The global extent of child sexual abuse

Furthermore, children around the world are exploited and sexually abused every second of every day.

According to the report, files containing sexual images of children are reported to the world’s five largest surveillance and police organizations once per second.

Professor Debi Fry, an expert in international child protection at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Childlight project, said the world needs to know that these atrocities affect children in every classroom, every school and every country.

“These are not harmless images: they are deeply harmful, and the abuse continues with each view, even if this offensive content is not removed,” Fry said.

While there are problems in all parts of the world, the report says the United States is a particularly high-risk area because it hosts a large amount of child sexual abuse material.

In addition, it was found that approximately one-quarter of U.S. children (23 percent) were victims of involuntary recording, sharing, and unwanted exposure to sexual images and videos in the past year.

One in nine men in the United States (or nearly 14 million men) admitted to committing online sexual assault against children at some point in their lives.

According to a recent study by Salter, almost one in ten Australian men has committed a sexual offence against a child.

“The higher rate of child sex crimes in the United States is due to policy decisions, including a lack of investment in public health and child welfare and a reluctance to regulate online environments,” Salter said.

“We are talking about children who have been sexually abused because they use technologies, services and products offered to them by commercial companies that enable this, and we must focus our attention on the role they play in ensuring children’s safety online.”

A public health crisis

Grace Tame, Australian of the Year 2021 and a victim of childhood sexual abuse herself, said the figures in the report showed that child sexual abuse is a “global public health crisis that is steadily worsening”.

Salter said the problem has worsened since COVID-19 and should be treated as an epidemic.

“Child sexual abuse is a public health problem with long-term impacts on the mental and physical health of victims and survivors,” Salter said.

“This has significant implications for the safety of children who are abused online. In particular, images and videos are recorded and shared. Portraying it as an epidemic highlights the scale of the spread and the devastating lifelong impact.”

Paul Stanfield, CEO of Childlight, said while his organization calls for child sexual abuse to be treated as a public health issue, he recognizes that this takes time – time that children do not have.

“The police have failed to cope with the scale of the problem and more needs to be done to prevent it from happening in the first place,” he said.

“The safety of children must be put before the privacy of perpetrators and the profits of companies.”

Stop It Now! Australia works with adults who are concerned about their own or others’ sexual thoughts or behaviour towards children. Call the anonymous helpline on 1800-01-1800 or access resources here.