Over 300 million children worldwide are victims of online sexual exploitation each year. This figure highlights the vast scale of the crisis, with cases occurring at a rate of 10 incidents per second.

The prevalence of online sexual exploitation of children varies significantly by region. For example, in Eastern and Southern Africa, up to 25.5% of children reported experiencing online solicitation during their childhood, while North America and Western Europe have high rates of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) reports per capita

NCMEC ESPs submitted 54.8 million images of child sexual abuse materials to the CyberTipline of which 22.4 million (41%) were novel. Of the 49.5 million videos, 11.2 million (23%) were unique newly created material.

According to INHOPE, 85% of public reports of CSAM contained uniquely new content.

The Internet Watch Foundation reports that 26% of CSAM content was a type we have never seen before.

According to Childlight (2024), over 300 million children have been victims of online sexual exploitation and abuse in the past year. It indicates that 12.6% of the world’s children have been victims of non-consensual taking, sharing and exposure to sexual images and video in the past year. That amounts to about 302 million young people.

In 2024, the INHOPE network’s hotlines processed 2,497,438 online records suspected of CSAM - a staggering 218% increase from 2023. 65% of the records were classified as illegal. 93% of victims are children between 3 and 13 years old, and 99% of victims are young girls. CSAM was traced to 86 countries in 2024, up from 84 in 2023.