As many as 20 million youngsters in 21 nations have skilled on-line sexual abuse or exploitation annually, in line with new findings from the United Nations youngsters’s company, UNICEF.
A couple of in 5 youngsters aged 12 to 17 in nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Japanese Europe have been focused on digital platforms, in line with the UNICEF report launched on Thursday.
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Researchers surveyed 21,000 youngsters aged 12 to 17 who used the web throughout 21 nations between 2020 and 2021, after which once more between 2024 and 2025. In addition they performed in-depth interviews with 100 younger individuals who have skilled childhood abuse.
Social media facilitated greater than half of the abuse circumstances, in line with UNICEF, which cautioned that figures might be inaccurate on account of underreporting by youngsters. Lower than 1 per cent of all abusive incidents had been reported to authorities, the researchers discovered.
Final week, US social media big Meta agreed to a landmark $18bn settlement in a significant US federal case accusing the corporate of endangering youngsters. Meta has confronted an avalanche of legal cases this 12 months, most arguing that it has intentionally designed its platforms to be addictive and that they’ve harmed youngsters. The corporate has now agreed to make main modifications to the options of its social media platforms.
What are the important thing findings of the UNICEF report?
The report estimated that within the intervals studied, greater than 15 million youngsters had been uncovered to undesirable sexual content material, 9 million had been requested to have interaction in sexual conversations or share sexual photos towards their will, and 4 million youngsters had sexual photos of themselves shared with out their consent.
UNICEF mentioned the difficulty is compounded by the truth that youngsters typically don’t recognise abuse or know who to report it to, and worry repercussions in the event that they do. Formal techniques can really feel distant, complicated or intimidating, the report famous.
“The report reveals a painful actuality. Greater than 20 million youngsters throughout the nations studied had been subjected to undesirable express sexual content material or exploitation on-line, typically within the digital areas the place they be taught, play, and join with mates,” mentioned UNICEF Govt Director Catherine Russell. “These experiences trigger profound emotional and psychological misery. Many youngsters endure in silence, not sure the place to show for assist. We can not look away.”
The place was information collected?
Info for the report was primarily based on nationally consultant survey information collected between 2020 and 2025 from roughly 21,000 internet-using youngsters from the next nations:
- Japanese and South Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda
- Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam
- Latin America and the Caribbean: Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico
- Japanese Europe: Armenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia
- South Asia: Pakistan
The place are youngsters being abused?
Abuse typically begins in public areas, similar to in faculties or native neighbourhoods, earlier than transferring to digital areas which may additional facilitate hurt.
Social media and messaging platforms allow completely different phases of abuse, “together with preliminary contact, relationship-building, sexual solicitation, image-sharing, coercion, blackmail and the continued circulation of sexual content material”, the report mentioned.
Generally abuse takes place solely on-line.
In response to the report’s findings, greater than 60 % of circumstances occurred on social media platforms, with the bulk on Fb (50 %), WhatsApp (29 %), Instagram (24 %), SnapChat (13 %) and TikTok (12 %).
Do youngsters report abuse?
Most kids don’t search assist if they’re being abused. Lower than one % of circumstances are reported to the police, a social employee or a helpline, whereas greater than 4 in 10 circumstances not being disclosed to anybody in any respect.
“Youngsters usually are not failing to report; they’ve accurately labored out that there’s nowhere to report back to,” Nighat Dad, govt director of the Pakistan-based Digital Rights Basis, instructed Al Jazeera.
Dad, whose NGO works to supply secure on-line areas in Pakistan, famous that incidents repeatedly happen on-line due to a “design drawback – the message request, the transfer to a non-public chat, the reshare, the power to return after being blocked”.
Many youngsters minimise their experiences or don’t recognise once they’ve been abused, she mentioned.
Even when youngsters do communicate out, to a detailed good friend, sibling, or dad or mum, doing so could not essentially cease the abuse or carry perpetrators to account.
UNICEF emphasised that its analysis interviews had been the primary time lots of the youngsters it interviewed had spoken to somebody in regards to the abuse they had been subjected to.
Dad additionally cautioned that Pakistan, for instance, is a “low-disclosure nation” the place notions of household “honour” and different cultural obstacles forestall youngsters from disclosing the hurt they’ve skilled.
“A woman who speaks dangers her cellphone, her education and typically her security, and a boy is predicted to manage in silence,” Dad mentioned.
How does gender issue into on-line abuse?
Perpetrators typically play on gender norms when exploiting youngsters. Stigma and blame are used towards ladies to maintain them silent, whereas boys are anticipated to manage alone, or threatened by perpetrators.
“Peer cultures and dangerous norms round gender or masculinity can additional normalise behaviours that trigger vital hurt, making abuse more durable to recognise and deal with,” UNICEF famous.
What sort of influence does on-line sexual abuse have on youngsters?
The repercussions are extreme, UNICEF mentioned: Youngsters uncovered to technology-facilitated sexual abuse and exploitation are 4 instances extra prone to have suicidal ideas and to self-harm, together with greater ranges of hysteria.
In Mexico or North Macedonia, for instance, the chance of suicidal ideas or behaviours was greater than eight instances greater amongst youngsters who skilled abuse, whereas in Pakistan the chance of self-harm was greater than seven instances greater than common, the report discovered.
Abuse extends properly past the digital sphere, seeping into youngsters’s on a regular basis lives, education and relationships.
What needs to be finished about this?
UNICEF mentioned the onus to guard youngsters on-line have to be positioned on governments and expertise firms, which should change how on-line areas are designed and controlled.
It additionally highlighted that whereas youngsters typically take steps to guard one another, societies, faculties and households should work to shift the burden of safety away from youngsters.
Citing Meta’s current settlement, Dad acknowledged that design modifications, similar to higher age verification and parental controls, can and will occur.
“For years these of us working exterior the US had been instructed these defaults would break the product. Meta has now proven the product can change.”
A spokesperson for Meta instructed Al Jazeera, “This report relies on surveys from way back to 2020, earlier than we launched the protections UNICEF recommends, like robotically defaulting teenagers into personal accounts and stopping adults from messaging teenagers they’re not related to.
“Whereas the report doesn’t present any particular proof of abuse, we’ll proceed to combat youngster exploitation aggressively throughout our apps and assist regulation enforcement in prosecuting the criminals behind it.”
The spokesperson additionally identified that Meta-owned WhatsApp is a non-public messaging service fairly than a social media platform. “We don’t have algorithms that make a bit of content material kind of prone to be considered, and also you want somebody’s cellphone quantity or actual username to attach with them for the primary time.”
Snapchat and TikTok haven’t responded to requests for remark for Al Jazeera.
