About 20 million internet-using children across 21 countries were subjected to sexual exploitation or abuse on digital platforms in a single year, with most cases occurring on social media platforms, a new report by the UN children’s charity said on Thursday.
The report also highlighted growing concerns over artificial intelligence. Roughly 15 million children in the countries surveyed were exposed to unwanted sexual content, 9 million were pressured into sexual conversations or sharing sexual images, and 4 million had sexual images shared without their consent, the report found. The research, which UNICEF described as one of the largest studies of its kind, was based on national representative surveys collected between 2020 and 2025 of around 21,000 internet-using children in the 21 countries, which included Kenya, Pakistan, Brazil and Serbia. Fewer than 1% of cases involving children were reported to the police, a social worker or a helpline, according to the research. Across nine countries where data was collected, an estimated 1.1 million children reported having AI-generated sexual images or videos created depicting them.
