GNV News April 12, 2025

According to a 2025 study by the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, child sexual exploitation and abuse, facilitated by technology such as online platforms, are estimated to have become a transnational industry worth tens of billions of US dollars. The same organization estimates that about 300 million children each year experience abuse facilitated by technology. In addition to the distribution of images and videos of sexual abuse of children, advances in AI have rapidly increased fabricated child sexual abuse material based on images of real children.

Those profiting from this exploitation are not limited to the perpetrators who run these exploitation and abuse operations. Financial institutions, technology companies, online payment services, and social media platforms, whether deliberately or through negligence, are enabling the flow of criminal proceeds. For example, by using certain online payment and remittance systems and cryptocurrencies that do not require directly sharing bank details, it has become possible to carry out financial sexual extortion and, in place of large organized criminal networks, to sell child sexual abuse content through small, highly secretive family units.

As countermeasures, it is considered urgent to pursue legislation and regulation, develop detection technologies for generative AI content, and build an international framework—centered on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—to block funds and enable the tracking of money across borders. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is also calling for accountability for all actors, whether direct or indirect, and for stronger coordination, stating that in addition to ex-post law enforcement measures, support for child victims, and prevention of secondary victimization, preventive strategies are indispensable.

Learn more about sexual assault occurring around the world → “One in eight girls under 18 worldwide has experienced sexual violence”

A 12-year-old girl living in a shelter for children who have experienced sexual exploitation, Philippines (Photo: ILO/Jeffrey Leventhal / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND2.0])