(SOUTH KOREA)
Chosun Biz [Seoul, South Korea]
May 28, 2026
By Kwak Soo-keun
Study reveals half of victims didn’t report abuse, highlighting need for platform safety measures
A large-scale study has found that one in six adolescents using the internet in 12 African and Asian countries experienced online sexual exploitation or abuse. More than half of the victims did not report their experiences to anyone. The research warns that while digital spaces such as smartphones and social media are expanding as venues for sexual crimes against adolescents, the harm remains largely hidden from public view.
An international research team led by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the UK published the results of their analysis of 11,912 internet users aged 12 to 17 in 12 African and Southeast Asian countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia, and the Philippines, in the international academic journal *Nature* on the 27th, local time.
The team investigated experiences of child sexual exploitation and abuse involving digital technology, including requests for sexual conversations or acts, demands for photos or videos of the body, receipt of unwanted sexual images, unauthorized distribution of private images, online grooming, and sexual threats or blackmail. The analysis revealed that 17% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 who use the internet experienced such harm at least once in the past year. When combined with each country’s internet penetration rate, it is estimated that over 10 million adolescents across the 12 countries suffered harm in a single year.
There were significant differences between countries. The Philippines, with an internet penetration rate of 95%, had the highest victimization rate at 28.6%. Uganda (27.7%) and Mozambique (25.9%) followed, while Vietnam (5.5%) had the lowest. The research team projected that the scale of harm could grow further in low- and middle-income countries where internet access is rapidly expanding.
The survey found almost no gender difference in online sexual exploitation and abuse among adolescents. The victimization rate was nearly identical, with 16.9% for males and 17.0% for females. This contrasts sharply with offline sexual violence, which is predominantly concentrated among females.
The survey found that 51% of victims did not report their experiences to anyone. Adolescents who did disclose their harm were far more likely to confide in friends or family than to use formal channels such as the police, teachers, social workers, or counseling hotlines. The most common reason for not reporting was “not knowing where or to whom to report” (37.6%), followed by shame or embarrassment (19.6%) and “thinking it was not a serious matter” (14.2%).
The research team emphasized the need for platform-level safety measures, including automatically setting minors’ personal information to private, restricting inappropriate contact between adults and adolescents, and automatically detecting patterns of online grooming and sexual threats.
The study results may underestimate the actual situation. The data analyzed was collected between 2020 and 2021, before the widespread adoption of generative AI and deepfake technology. The research team noted that child sexual abuse material created using generative AI and deepfakes is surging, and the pace is outstripping existing legal and protective frameworks. South Korea was not included in this survey. However, some experts argue that it is difficult to consider South Korea, with its high smartphone penetration rate and adolescent social media usage, an exception to this issue.