We must work together to address children’s access to violent content online

GENEVA, 7 May 2025 – “Pornographic content can have a profound impact on children's well-being and safety, and we are deeply alarmed by the massive amount of pornography available online, including increasingly graphic and extreme content that is easily accessible to children.   

While children’s access to pornography in non-digital media has been effectively restricted in many countries, efforts to do the same in digital environments have not been effective.

Furthermore, we know that when children view pornography that portrays abusive and violent acts, they may come to view such behaviour as normal and acceptable.

Violence - particularly against women and girls - is a historic and systemic issue. Today, however, digital technologies are exacerbating and creating new forms of violence.  

While more research is needed, we are seeing some evidence of a link between children consuming violent sexual content and perpetrating or being at risk of sexual violence themselves.

A recent meta-analysis of 16,200 children found that children exposed to violent sexual content were 2.5 times more likely to engage in problematic sexual behaviours.  

Efforts to regulate content and restrict children’s access to pornographic content have not kept pace with technological shifts that have profoundly altered the landscape for both the consumption and children’s risk of harm.

All stakeholders, including governments, must work urgently to challenge harmful social and cultural norms that enable violence against girls and boys online and offline. This includes the perpetuation of those norms through violent content. Changing these norms must start in childhood, with interventions evolving with children as they grow.  

UNICEF calls for the enforcement of legislative and regulatory frameworks to protect children from technology-facilitated violence and exploitation; provision of education that teaches digital literacy and online safety and security, and promotes trust and safe and healthy relationships; increased access to positive parenting and caregiver support programmes during early childhood through to adolescence; and specialised support to children who show harmful behaviours.

Digital service providers, internet and technology stakeholders must ensure age-appropriate safeguards, risk management, user controls and online safety reporting tools that would enable parents to provide the required support and for children to navigate digital spaces safely.

There is a complex relationship between online experiences and children's behaviour. But one thing is clear: changing deep-rooted, harmful stereotypes – online and offline – must be central to these efforts.”