The hidden epidemic harming millions of children that should be a global emergency
Eight out of 30 children may experience sexual exploitation or abuse online by the time they leave school
It is often said that statistics can numb us. But sometimes they do the opposite. They bring difficult realities into sharper focus.
Imagine for a moment a classroom of 30 children in Scotland. By the end of this year, two of them will have experienced sexual exploitation or abuse online. By the time that same group leaves school as young adults, that number could rise to eight. Now multiply that classroom across the country. Then across Europe. Then across the world.
This is not a hypothetical exercise. It is the reality revealed in a new report from the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute, hosted by the University of Edinburgh. The findings of our ‘Into the Light’ data update are stark: more than a quarter of children globally are subjected to unwanted or pressured sexual interactions online, including grooming that can lead to the exchange of intimate images.
Around seven per cent experienced this online sexual solicitation in the past year. Nearly one in ten can expect to face sexual extortion before they turn 18.
Long-term trauma, anxiety and depression
If a disease were affecting hundreds of millions of children in this way, it would already be recognised as a global health emergency. Governments would be mobilising resources, health systems reoriented and public awareness campaigns everywhere. Yet because this harm is often hidden behind screens and within private trauma, it has not been treated with the same urgency.
Our latest findings on online abuse should also be viewed alongside recent research published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, indicating that, in 2024 alone, more than 130 million children experienced offline sexual violence.
Behind every statistic is a child whose sense of safety has been shattered. Survivors are more likely to experience long-term trauma, anxiety, depression and self-harm, often lasting into adulthood. Viewed through a public health lens, the scale of the crisis becomes unmistakable, as Childlight and our partners will argue to global health ministries at the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse is not a marginal issue. It is one of the most powerful – and most overlooked – drivers of ill health throughout the life course. For girls and women, it contributes more to the burden of disease than recognised risk factors such as smoking, harmful alcohol use or physical inactivity.
For boys, it is a greater contributor to ill health than poor diet. It is also more prevalent than many conditions dominating debate about children’s wellbeing, including childhood obesity and asthma.
Social media under greater scrutiny
Taken together, the evidence leads to a clear conclusion: child sexual exploitation and abuse is a global health emergency hiding in plain sight. For too long, it has been treated primarily as a criminal justice issue. Law enforcement is essential, but policing alone cannot solve a problem of this scale.
A public health approach focuses not only on responding to harm, but on preventing it before it happens – by understanding risk factors, strengthening protective environments and intervening early. It means recognising that health systems, schools, technology companies and governments all have a role to play.
There are early signs the wider system may be beginning to shift. Recent jury verdicts in the United States have, for the first time, treated major social media platforms as products whose design can harm children – focusing not just on the content, but on how digital environments are built.
Questions are now being asked about why safety was not designed in from the outset. That matters because a core principle of public health is that risks should be designed out wherever possible, not managed only after harm occurs.
The urgency is increasing as the problem evolves. Technology has transformed childhood in extraordinary ways, opening opportunities for learning, connection and creativity, but also created new pathways for harm.
We find criminal networks profiting from the production and distribution of child sexual abuse material on an industrial scale. Children are groomed online, manipulated into sharing images, and then blackmailed in cycles of coercion and abuse.
So-called ‘how to’ guides for perpetrators to abuse and evade justice have been detected in 61 countries. Emerging technologies are accelerating this harm further. Artificial intelligence is already being used to rapidly generate and spread abuse material in ways unimaginable just a few years ago.
Will governments take action?
Yet there is nothing inevitable about the future we are heading towards. Imagine again that classroom of 30 children – but this time none are subjected to sexual violence or exploitation. This is a realistic goal if we are prepared to act.
The evidence increasingly shows prevention works, especially when embedded in maternal, child and adolescent health services. Education can equip young people to recognise and report abuse. Stronger regulation can reduce exposure to risk. Technology designed with safety at its core can help prevent exploitation rather than enable it.
None of these measures alone is sufficient. But together they form the foundation of a coordinated response that matches the scale of the problem. What is missing is not knowledge; it is resolve.
We need governments to treat this with the seriousness it demands – not as a niche issue, but as a central pillar of public health and child protection policy. We need sustained investment, not short-term initiatives, and better global data to understand risks and solutions.
The cost of inaction is measured not only in statistics, but in damaged lives and lost potential. When children are safe, they are more likely to succeed at school, flourish in work and contribute positively to their communities, with enormous benefits for society as a whole.
The question is no longer whether we understand the problem. It is whether we are willing to act.
Paul Stanfield is chief executive of the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute, hosted by the University of Edinburgh