A sweeping UNICEF analysis has laid bare the scale of online sexual harm facing children: about 20 million internet-using young people across 21 countries endured sexual exploitation or abuse on digital platforms in a single year, with social media accounting for the bulk of incidents.
In countries spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, more than one in five children aged 12 to 17 reported experiencing at least one form of online sexual abuse or exploitation in the year prior to being surveyed, the UN children’s agency estimated.
The report found that roughly 15 million children in the countries studied encountered unwanted sexual content. About 9 million were pressured into sexual conversations or into sharing sexual images, while 4 million said sexual images of them were shared without their consent.
UNICEF said the true global number is certain to be far higher, running into many tens of millions of children.
Described by UNICEF as one of the largest studies of its kind, the research drew on nationally representative surveys conducted between 2020 and 2025 among around 21,000 internet-using children across the 21 countries, including Kenya, Pakistan, Brazil and Serbia.
Social media focus
Nearly 60% of reported abuse took place on social media platforms, the report said, with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok cited most often. Another 14% occurred in online gaming environments.
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, noted that some surveys date back to 2020, before the company rolled out protections UNICEF recommends, including automatically setting teen accounts to private by default and blocking adults from messaging teens they are not connected to. Meta added that it considers WhatsApp a private messaging app rather than a social media platform.
“While the report doesn’t provide any specific evidence of abuse, we’ll continue to fight child exploitation aggressively across our apps and support law enforcement in prosecuting the criminals behind it,” the Meta spokesperson said.
Snapchat directed Reuters to a blog post from Global Head of Platform Safety Jacqueline Beauchere, who said the company was working to tackle online sexual extortion through proactive detection, removing offending accounts, strengthening user reporting tools and deploying safety features aimed at protecting vulnerable users.
TikTok said it has introduced a range of safeguards for minors, including limiting certain features for younger users, setting accounts for under-18s to private by default, and using technology designed to detect potentially predatory behaviour.
Beyond where the abuse occurs, UNICEF’s findings also point to who is behind it. More than half of cases involved someone the child already knew — such as friends, relatives or romantic partners — while 38% of children said they first came across the perpetrator online.
Yet the research found that fewer than 1% of incidents involving children were reported to police, a social worker or a helpline.
The report also flagged rising alarm over artificial intelligence. In nine countries where data was collected, UNICEF estimated that 1.1 million children said AI-generated sexual images or videos had been created portraying them.
Children who experienced tech-facilitated sexual exploitation were around four times more likely to report suicidal thoughts or self-harm, and they reported markedly higher levels of anxiety than their peers, the research said.
“These experiences cause profound emotional and mental distress. Many children suffer in silence, unsure where to turn for help,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.
UNICEF called on governments and technology companies to bolster digital safety measures, modernise laws to keep pace with emerging forms of abuse — including AI-generated content — and strengthen child protection services and reporting systems.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, please see the RTÉ Helplines page.
