A recent report published on November 21, 2024, revealed a staggering 115,489 incidents of child sexual exploitation recorded over the past year.

The report also highlighted that 76% of the perpetrators of child abuse were men, while 78% of the victims were girls.

Among these incidents, 430 involved suspects under the age of ten, indicating a troubling trend of younger individuals engaging in such behavior.

Furthermore, the report indicated that 4,228 incidents involved groups of two or more individuals, with nearly half of the known-age suspects falling between the ages of 10 and 17.

Assistant Chief Constable Becky Riggs attributed the rise in child-on-child sexual abuse to unrestricted access to adult content, which is facilitated by smartphones and streaming services.

Riggs emphasized that the traditional 9pm watershed for explicit content has become irrelevant in the digital age, allowing children to access inappropriate material at any time.

She further noted that children can easily misrepresent their age to access age-restricted content, a stark contrast to previous generations when such access was more controlled.

Graeme Biggar, head of the National Crime Agency, warned that the online viewing of child sexual abuse materials is creating a market for these crimes.