Online child sex exploitation increased by 347% in Canada since 2014

 

Online child sexual exploitation rate up 347% in Canada since 2014

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Aarjavee Raaj

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Published: March 12, 2026 at 10:39AM EDT

A new report from Statistics Canada found that despite a 16 per cent year-over-year decrease, the rate of online child sexual exploitation has increased by 347 per cent in Canada since 2014.

The report, based on data from 2023-24, found that police services from across the country reported a total of 16,905 incidents of online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) in a single year.

The StatCan report released Tuesday also found that the number of reported online sexual offences against children increased by 182 per cent in a 10-year timespan.

What is considered online child sexual exploitation?

The term OSCE includes a “wide range” of Criminal Code offences that are grouped into two categories, StatCan said, providing the following definitions:

• Online sexual offences against children – Examples include luring, inviting to sexual touching and non-consensual distribution of intimate images involving victims aged 17 years and younger; and
• Online child sexual abuse and exploitation material offences – Formerly known as child pornography offences.

Police-reported incidents in 2023-24

According to the report, the rate of online sexual offences against children continued to rise in 2024, as police-reported incidents of the offences rose by 43 per cent in a year, mainly due to a “sharp” increase in the number of “luring incidents.”

“Consistent with previous years, luring — the offence of communicating with a child or youth online for the purpose of committing a sexual offence — accounted for almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of all police-reported online sexual offences against children in 2024,” the StatCan report said.

The report called it the “highest rate on record since comparable data became available in 2014.”

Majority of OSCE victims were girls

The rate of police-reported online sexual exploitation was the highest for girl victims, the report found. Out of the 1,649 children and youth victims of the offences in 2024, three-quarters or 78 per cent were girls.

The report also found that the rate of reported online sexual offences against children was almost four times higher for girls than boys.

However, the report added that there was a drop in the number of online child sexual abuse and exploitation material incidents reported to police in 2024 from the previous year by 26 per cent, driving the overall rate of incidents to fall. This was partially due to more cases – current and historical – being brought forward to the authorities by specialized provincial or federal internet child exploitation police units.

Methodology

The report is based on a Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR) that collects data from criminal incidents that were reported to the Canadian authorities and examines the incidents, focusing on the characteristics of the OSCE incidents, victims and accused persons.

The variations in the rates of incidents between years may be due to differences in recognition, reporting and investigation of the incidents, rather than changes in occurrence.

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Child Sexual Abuse > Online CSA is exploding across Ireland

 

Almost 560 cases of online child abuse reported weekly,

new report finds

Ian Begley, Extra.ie

05/10/2024

Almost 560 cases of child sex abuse material were reported in Ireland every week last year, a new report has found.

The national reporting centre, Hotline.ie, received more than 29,000 confirmed reports of child sex abuse material last year, more than double the number in 2022 and a ten-fold rise since 2020.

In addition, illegal self-generated material, created by children on their phones or webcams, has soared by 280%.

Included in Hotline’s annual report, there were 470 reports of intimate image abuse, which includes non-consensual sharing of intimate images, commonly referred to as ‘revenge porn’.

Out of the 29,906 URL addresses found to contain illegal content, only 362 remained active by the end of last year, resulting in a 99% removal rate.

Mick Moran, CEO of Hotline, said: ‘If you give the child 24-hour unfettered high broadband access to the internet, you’re giving the internet 24-hour high broadband access to your child.’

He added that children are often exploited or coerced into making illegal material, while others exchange images and videos by choice.

‘All of these things feed into this increase, but more important is the fact that we’re seeing these images being produced by kids themselves.’

‘Is there a linkage to the fact that these pre-teen children- so children under 12, mostly under ten – have devices?’

Mr Moran said that parents should engage with their children and use resources such as Web Wise, the ISPCC website or Cyber Safe Kids for direction. The Children’s Rights Alliance said the increase is ‘deeply troubling to hear’.

The national reporting centre, Hotline.ie, received more than 29,000 confirmed reports of child sex abuse material last year, more than double the number in 2022 and a ten-fold rise since 2020. Pic: Getty Images

‘It is entirely unacceptable in our society that so many reports of this illegal and abusive material were found,’ Noeline Blackwell, the group’s online safety co-ordinator, said.

Global safety institute Childlight has also called for a new approach to better protect children.

Its CEO Paul Stanfield stated: ‘We estimate that the lives of one in eight children are blighted by this public health emergency.’

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Dark Web Child Porn Site Ran ‘Much Better’ with FBI in Charge – Lawyer

The astonishing advance of technology presents some new and challenging problems for police. Police must employ innovative techniques to investigating technology-based crime. The FBI did the right thing in operating Playpen for two weeks while infecting users computers. However, their improvements to the site resulted in astonishing growth which judges might perceive as entrapment. How they can justify improving the site is beyond my imagination, and I fear child-hater Steven Chase will walk because of it.


© Zachary Fagenson / Reuters

Membership on the largest “dark web” child pornography site rose by a third and it ran “much better” while it was operated secretly by the FBI, one defense lawyer in the “Playpen” case has argued, seeking to have the charges dismissed.

After taking control of "Playpen” in February 2015, the FBI continued to operate the child pornography site for two more weeks, seeking to infect users’ computers with malware. Over 4,000 computers worldwide were hacked in this fashion, and 186 people were charged. A defense attorney for one of them is now saying the FBI did a better job of running the site.

Steven Chase, the original administrator of Playpen, is accused of participating in a “child exploitation enterprise.” His attorney is seeking to have the case dismissed due to “outrageous government conduct,” Motherboard reported.

“The FBI distributed child pornography to viewers and downloaders worldwide for nearly two weeks, until at least March 4, 2015, even working to improve the performance of the website beyond its original capability,” wrote Peter Adolf, an assistant federal defender in the Western District of North Carolina, in a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday.

Adolf goes on to quote user comments indicating that “Playpen” performed much better under the FBI’s management, which led to the site becoming even more popular.

“Yes, it is working much better now!” said one user.
“Working FAST today :-)” wrote another.
“It now runs everything very smoothly!” said a third.

“As a result, the number of visitors to Playpen while it was under Government control [increased] from an average of 11,000 weekly visitors to approximately 50,000 per week. During those two weeks, the website’s membership grew by over 30 percent, the number of unique weekly visitors to the site more than quadrupled, and approximately 200 videos, 9,000 images, and 13,000 links to child pornography were posted on the site,” Adolf wrote.

Government improvements resulted in “more users receiving more child pornography faster than they ever did when the website was running ‘illegally’,” the attorney argued. “In essence, the government committed a more serious crime – distribution of child pornography – in order to apprehend defendants committing the less serious crime of accessing and viewing child pornography.”

Although the US Supreme Court has never specified what would qualify as outrageous conduct by the government, Adolf pointed to two previous circuit court cases, dating back to 1984 and 1986, to point out that cases have been dismissed when government agents have supplied or were “intimately involved” in the production of contraband, or when their conduct resulted in injuries to an innocent third party.

Under the government standard for child pornography, a child is victimized each time his or her image is viewed. During its operation of Playpen, the FBI distributed a million illegal images, according to a “conservative estimate” by defense attorneys in other related cases, who filed their own motions Monday.

The FBI has declined to comment on the pending legal proceedings.