Protecting Children in Online Gaming
Mitigating Risks from Organized Violence
Highlights
Gaming has become the world’s most profitable form of entertainment, with over 3.4 billion players globally and a market worth nearly $188 billion. For children, especially in middle- and high-income countries, gaming is now a core part of social life — nine in 10 play online games. These digital worlds foster creativity, collaboration, and community.
But alongside these benefits lies a growing threat. Violent and criminal organizations are exploiting gaming platforms – from multiplayer chat to virtual communities — to socialize and recruit young players, including children, to involve them in violence. This emerging form of online exploitation abuses the very features that make gaming engaging: social interaction, identity play, and shared experience.
This UNICEF working paper explores how gaming ecosystems are being weaponized by non-state armed groups and hybrid criminal networks to involve children in organized violence. It highlights the urgent need for coordinated action across the gaming industry, policymakers, child protection actors, and law enforcement. While gaming itself is not inherently harmful, its infrastructure is being misused at scale. Protecting children’s right to play and to be safe from violence demands new forms of prevention, detection, and response.
The report offers actionable recommendations to ensure gaming remains a space of inclusion, creativity, and joy. Not one where children are targets of exploitation.
