27 April 2025, 21:06 | Updated: 27 April 2025, 21:23

By Sarah Champion

As the Member of Parliament for Rotherham and a longstanding Parliamentary Champion of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), I have dedicated much of my career to the fight for stronger child protection measures.

One of the most pressing challenges I've been tackling for over a decade is the rise of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. Despite significant progress, the scale of this problem continues to grow.

In 2024, the IWF, the frontline against child sexual abuse in the UK, confirmed a record-breaking 291,273 reports of child sexual abuse imagery – an increase of 6% compared to 2023. This means every 108 seconds, a new report emerges showing a child being sexually abused. Each of these reports could involve hundreds, even thousands, of individual images or videos of abuse.

Troublingly, 97% of the reports in which victims’ sex was recorded showed the sexual abuse of girls only. This stark figure highlights the urgent need for increased focus on protecting young girls, who continue to be disproportionately affected by online abuse.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also made the creation of child sexual abuse material more widespread, allowing offenders to generate hundreds of illegal images with just a few clicks. In 2024, the IWF saw a staggering 380% surge in reports involving........

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