Sodiq Ojuroungbe Over 300 million children worldwide fall victim to online sexual exploitation and abuse each year, a new study has revealed. The statistic which equates to one in eight of the world’s children, was published on Monday by the University of Edinburgh’s Childlight Global Child Safety Institute. The study exposed the widespread, growing issue of online sexual abuse perpetrated against minors.
While carrying out the study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that in the past 12 months alone, millions of young people have been victims of non-consensual taking, sharing, and exposure to sexual images and videos. In addition to the non-consensual sharing of sexual content, the report highlighted a similar number of cases involving solicitation that includes unwanted sexting and requests for sexual acts by both adults and other youths. Offences range from sextortion, where predators demand money from victims to keep images private, to the abuse of AI technology to create deepfake videos and pictures.
Though it was indicated that the problem is worldwide, the research suggested that the United States is a particularly high-risk area, with one in nine men there admitting to online offences against children at some point. The researchers analysed tens of millions of reports to the five main global watchdog and policing organisations including, the Internet Watch Foundation, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, the Canadian Centre for Ch.
