20% of Pre-teens Think They Have Had Sexual Encounters with Adults Online

According to a report by the anti-trafficking organization Thorn, as many as one in five pre-teens between the ages of 9 and 12 have had sexual interactions online with someone they thought was an adult.

Minors were at risk of sexual exploitation by various parties: online, in real life and even by each other.

“This age group is having their first access to the internet and exposure. At this age, laptops and other devices are expected to be used in schools, so they have almost constant access to the internet and the online channels that predators use to target victims,” said Katherine Haller Danley, a licensed clinical social worker at Thriveworks in Tampa. Newsweek.

The study, which included more than 1,000 children aged 9 to 17, found that sextortion is a major problem among minors, with one in 17 having been threatened to leak explicit sexual images of themselves if they did not comply.

The rise of AI-influenced deepfakes is also becoming increasingly popular among children themselves, with one in ten minors admitting to knowing a friend or classmate who has created AI-generated deepfakes of nude photos of other children.

“The fact that 1 in 10 minors report that their peers are using AI to generate nude images of other children is alarming and highlights how quickly online risks are evolving,” Julie Cordua, CEO of Thorn, said in a statement. “This emerging form of abuse poses a potent threat to the safety and well-being of children. We must act quickly to develop safeguards, educate young people about the dangers of deepfakes, and empower parents to have open conversations with their children about these risks.”

The most popular platforms for teens’ online sexual experiences were Snapchat, Instagram, Messenger, Facebook, TikTok, and Omegle.

“Adolescents and preteens don’t always listen to their parents when they talk about the risks of online predators,” Haller Danley said.

“They may also not want their use to be supervised. Sometimes these young people don’t have the most supportive relationships with their parents or they may be victims of domestic violence… Society needs to find other ways to get the message out to our youth about the dangers of online victimization.”

However, these online sexual interactions are often kept secret and never told to friends or family. One in six minors who had online sexual interactions said they did not tell anyone.

The consequences of increasing sexual exploitation among pre-teens are not going unnoticed.

The number of suicides among young people has increased in recent years. Since 2008, the number of children between the ages of 8 and 12 who die by suicide has increased by 8 percent per year. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, that group is disproportionately made up of girls.

As prepubescents begin to develop sexually, they are naturally curious about sexual experiences, making them especially vulnerable to online predators, Haller Danley said.

Still, a typical online predator can pose very differently from a child abuser, she said.

“They are more looking for adoration and a sense of sexual control over their victims,” ​​Haller Danley added. “Perhaps they are trying to relive adolescent experiences and the thrill of seducing adolescent youth.”