The Disrupting Harm research project is one of the largest studies of its kind: conducted jointly by UNICEF, ECPAT International and INTERPOL, the project implemented nationally representative surveys of around 21,000 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 across 21 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe, alongside in-depth interviews with more than 100 young people subjected to technologyfacilitated sexual abuse during childhood, over 500 frontline professionals and law enforcement personnel working directly with cases of abuse, and reviews of national policies and legislation. This report centres the data and evidence provided directly by children. For the first time at this scale, it lets us see the problem through children’s own eyes. Yet even this can show only part of a much larger picture; the estimated 20 million internet-using children affected represent a fraction of the world's roughly one billion adolescents. With risks present wherever children are, the true global number of children subjected to this abuse is certain to run into many tens of millions. Listening to what children tell us, however uncomfortable, is central to protecting them: looking away serves no one but those who cause or facilitate harm. What follows is faithful to children’s own accounts, because the world cannot act on what it refuses to hear. Three things we cannot ignore First, the harm is widespread, and it happens through mainstream platforms. In a single year and in only 21 countries, an estimated 15 million children were exposed to unwanted sexual content, 9 million were asked to engage in sexual conversations or to share sexual images against their will and 4 million had sexual images of them shared without permission. Almost 60 per cent of this abuse happened on social media and 14 per cent transpired in games; the five social media platforms where most of this abuse occurred were Facebook (50 per cent), WhatsApp (29 per cent), Instagram (24 per cent), Snapchat (13 per cent) and TikTok (12 per cent). Through Children’s Eyes Executive summary 2