1.2 million children in Kenya have experienced online sexual exploitation and abuse - UNICEF

• Most children who were subjected to unwanted explicit sexual content or exploitation online did not know where to turn for help.
• Only 1% of the cases were reported to the police, 0.4% to a social worker, and 0.6% to helplines.

In Kenya, 1,292,364 children, aged between 12 and 17, were subjected to at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation and abuse. Photo: UNICEF/Handout

The internet, as it is, is not safe for children.

They continue to witness forms of violence and abuse, including cyberbullying, grooming, and sexual exploitation, which are perpetrated through social media, gaming, and messaging platforms that the children use.

A report by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that millions of children in Kenya are not safe online, as digital technologies have continued to perpetuate harm.

Dubbed “Through Children’s eyes” UNICEF’s report shows that up to 1,292,364 children, aged between 12 and 17, were subjected to at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation and abuse. The findings were from a survey conducted between 2020–2021 and 2024–2025, which found that 26.83% of children in Kenya using the internet were subjected to at least one form of abuse.

Tanzania and Uganda, also in the East African region, were among the 21 countries featured in the survey. Here, Tanzania recorded 457,134 cases of online child abuse while Uganda registered 913,878 cases.

Globally, the Philippines recorded the highest numbers, with 4,762,012 children abused or sexually exploited online. Other countries that recorded high numbers were Brazil (3,021,468), Indonesia (2,129,202), Mexico (1,556,565) and Pakistan (1,197,974).

How children were abused

In Kenya, the majority of children who were abused online were exposed to unwanted sexual content online. Here, at least 995,260 children were exposed to sexual content they did not want to see.

These children reported being exposed to sexual images or videos they did not want to see.

The survey further shows that 634,505 children in Kenya were asked to talk about sex or sexual acts when they did not want to, or to share an image or video showing their private parts when they did not want to.

Another form of abuse reported by Kenyan children was being offered money or gifts in return for sexual content or sexual contact.

375,436 of them said they had been offered money or gifts in return for sexual images or videos of themselves, or to meet someone in person to do something sexual.

The survey also found that 355,251 children using the internet in Kenya had their sexual images or videos shared without their permission.

These harms were reported to have been perpetuated by someone the child knows, strangers, or unidentified persons. 66% of children in Kenya were abused by someone known to them, 17% by strangers, and 18% by unidentified persons.

“Children described abuse involving manipulation, pressure, coercion, grooming and

exploitation of trust from both known and unknown perpetrators,” the report indicates.

But where are these children abused? UNICEF found that abuse and sexual exploitation of children in Kenya is most prevalent on social media platforms (61%); whereas 11.6% encounter it on gaming platforms and another 17.9% were in person.

In Kenya, abuse and sexual exploitation of children were highest on WhatsApp (51.6%) and Facebook (53.3%).

Nowhere to turn for help

According to UNICEF, most children who were subjected to unwanted explicit sexual content or exploitation online did not know where to turn for help.

This is despite the abuse having impacted their emotional wellbeing, sense of safety, and trust in others. The abuse left children in a state of fear, shame, confusion and isolation. Others developed risks of self-harm.

In Kenya, for instance, 67.3% of children disclosed the abuse to someone they know, while 32.7% others remained silent.

25.5% of Kenyan children did not know where to go for help or who to tell, while 22.1% felt embarrassed to talk about the abuse and sexual exploitation.

Other children failed to report the abuse because they thought it was not serious, did not care to do so, or were afraid of getting in trouble.

For those who spoke about the abuse, a majority (34.4%) told their friends, while 6.8% informed their brothers or sisters, 5.9% told their mother or female guardians, 8.7% told their father or male guardian, and 4.1% told their teachers.

Notably, abuse and sexual exploitation are rarely reported through formal support or reporting mechanisms such as police, social workers, or helplines. In Kenya, only 1% of the cases were reported to police, 0.4% to a social worker, and 0.6% to helplines.

Platform accountability

As cases of child abuse and sexual exploitation are recorded on technology platforms, there are also concerns about children being hooked on the platforms and the effects on their mental wellbeing.

Meta has recently faced an avalanche of legal actions concerning the safety of its platforms, especially Facebook and Instagram.

The tech giant recently agreed to make major changes to its platform features, which were found to cause addiction and other harms among children.

The Guardian reports that Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use nationwide in the US.

This was after a suit by 29 states that accused Meta of designing addictive algorithms that harmed children's mental health and illegally collected their data.

The technology giant reached an agreement to pay a coalition of US states $16.7 billion as a settlement for the said harms.

Google, through its video platform YouTube, also faces multiple legal actions regarding children's use of social media and youth mental health.

In March 2026, a U.S. jury found that YouTube had an addictive app design that damaged the mental health of a plaintiff.

Such concerns have since led to multiple legislations banning the use of social media among children, especially in European jurisdictions.

xAI also faces accusations of causing harm to children, where Grok Chatbot is said to have perpetuated child sexual exploitation and abuse in images shared on the X social media platform.