New Research Calls for Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse to Be Treated as a Public Health Emergency
A new briefing paper from Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute – The Global Child Safety Institute at The University of Edinburgh, funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research has revealed the scale of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (TF-CSEA) in Scotland and calls for urgent action to address the issue as a public health emergency.
Using policing data alongside global prevalence estimates from Childlight’s Into the Light Global Index, the research provides one of the clearest pictures to date of the scale and nature of online child sexual abuse affecting children in Scotland.
Key Findings
🔹 90,000 children (11.8%) experienced online solicitation in the past year
🔹 Over 150,000 children (19.9%) were victims of non-consensual taking, sharing or exposure to sexual images and videos
🔹 The estimated prevalence of men committing TF-CSEA against children is 1 in 14 men
🔹 In 2022 alone, there were 265,000+ CSAM reports linked to the UK — equivalent to more than one report every two minutes in Scotland
A System-Level Challenge
The report makes clear that child sexual abuse, whether in person or technology-facilitated, cannot be solved through policing alone. It requires a coordinated, society-wide prevention response involving government, law enforcement, researchers, communities, and the technology sector.
Professor Deborah Fry said:
💬 “Behind every statistic is a child in a community across Scotland. Technology-facilitated child sexual abuse is a public health emergency and we cannot police our way out of it. Stronger collaboration between researchers and law enforcement is how we build the evidence base to stop abuse before it starts.”
✅ Key Recommendations
✔️ Treat TF-CSEA as a public health emergency
✔️ Increase technology company accountability
✔️ Adopt the PROVED model to strengthen academic-policing partnerships
✔️ Invest in data integration to understand the full scale of the threat in Scotland
About the Report
Authors: Professor Deborah Fry, Dr Ashleigh McFeeters, Zoe Lambourne and Dr Seongsook Choi
Organisation: Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute – The University of Edinburgh
Funded by: Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR)
Date: June 2025
Please read full report 👉 https://bit.ly/4cPKqCI
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