A girl from Mexico, who was 16 years old at the time, explained how she found out that her sexual images, along with images of multiple girls in her community, were being advertised via a Facebook group, and later sold through Telegram. “They were not 10 folders, nor 20, they were around 300, organized alphabetically by name. I mean, depending on the municipality, there were files for [mentions different municipalities]. They would present the images on Facebook and announce the selling of images folders on Facebook, and I think at the time they cost 7.5 pesos.” At the centre of these experiences is not wrongdoing by a child, but abuse carried out by those who choose to exploit, expose, or profit from a child’s private images. This includes situations where sexual images are not even real but digitally created or manipulated using AI tools. The impact of this form of abuse can be just as severe, and the consequences long lasting. A young woman from Montenegro recounted receiving a digitally altered image of herself: Over 1.1 million children have had AI-generated sexual images or videos created depicting them in just one year.† “It was during a school recess, and I opened [a photo received from a fake profile via Instagram]. They managed to take my photo, take my head and put it on someone else’s body and make it look like it was actually my photo, like it was me.” Whether it begins with trust, threats, coercion, or digitally manipulated deepfakes, the outcome is severe. Once an image or video is shared online, it can be reshared and reshaped, and can reappear in ways that can be difficult to contain. For more details about the statistics presented in this section, view the Appendix Yet children often end up carrying the burden of what happened. Society questions their decisions, rather than the actions of the perpetrator. Preventing this harm requires shifting that narrative. Responsibility lies with those who manipulate, coerce, pressure, exploit, or violate children by misusing their private images – not with the child who was harmed. Responsibility also lies with digital service providers who have a duty to prevent, detect and remove non-consensual intimate images, and to ensure their services do not facilitate or profit from such abuse. Through Children’s Eyes How does digital technology enable sexual exploitation and abuse? 17