NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 3 — Nearly one in five internet-using children aged 12 to 17 across 21 countries were subjected to at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation and abuse in a single year, a new UNICEF report says.An estimated 20 million children were affected, according to Through Children’s Eyes: How Digital Technologies Enable Child Sexual Abuse, based on nationally representative surveys of approximately 21,000 internet-using children.The report published on Thursday says the abuse occurs on digital platforms children use every day and is frequently perpetrated by people they already know.“This is not a marginal risk; it runs through mainstream, everyday platforms,” UNICEF says.An estimated 15 million children were exposed to sexual content they did not want to see, while nine million were asked to engage in sexual conversations or share sexual images against their will.Another four million had sexual images of themselves shared without permission.Almost 60 per cent of cases occurred on social media, while 14 per cent took place in online games. Facebook accounted for 50 per cent of cases, followed by WhatsApp at 29 per cent, Instagram at 24 per cent, Snapchat at 13 per cent and TikTok at 12 per cent.The report challenges the perception that online abuse is mainly committed by strangers.Fifty-seven per cent of cases involved perpetrators already known to children, including friends, family members and romantic partners, while in 38 per cent of cases children first met perpetrators online.UNICEF says platform features such as unsolicited messages, closed chats, fake profiles and the ability to reconnect after being blocked can be exploited to facilitate abuse.“The abuse is digital platform-enabled and carried out through features that could be built differently.”The vast majority of cases also go unreported.More than four in 10 cases were disclosed to no one, while fewer than one per cent were reported to police, social workers or helplines.The most common reason for silence was not knowing where to go or whom to tell.The report links the abuse to significantly poorer wellbeing outcomes, finding that affected children were four times more likely to report suicidal thoughts and behaviours and four times more likely to engage in self-harm. Anxiety levels were approximately 11 percentage points higher.UNICEF cautions that the analysis demonstrates associations rather than causation and cannot establish that the abuse caused the poorer mental-health outcomes.The agency is calling for governments and technology companies to strengthen child protection online, including privacy-by-default safeguards, restrictions on unsolicited adult contact, safer recommender systems and proactive detection of abuse material, including AI-generated content.“Children should not have to fight so hard to be safe and supported.”