What’s the problem?
“…a boy demands that a girl keep sending him nude photos, or else he’ll forward all the intimate pictures he already has to her relatives, friends, and acquaintances.” Or: “…a stranger offered a girl a way to earn money. She was supposed to take intimate photos of herself and post them in a Telegram channel.” These are the kinds of reports consultants at StopCrime, a hotline created to prevent and fight sexual violence against children online, receive daily.
Online abuse takes many forms: from cyberbullying to the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM); from grooming, when predators build trust with children to exploit them, to sextortion, where children are blackmailed with their own pictures.
According to a study under the international project Health Behavior of School-Aged Children, 16% of teenagers worldwide face humiliation and bullying on the internet. Ukraine’s Ombudsman for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, says cyberbullying happens on social media, in messengers, and on gaming and mobile platforms, where, sometimes, predators incite physical or psychological pressure. Worse still, administrators of specific channels demand money from young users to delete humiliating posts, essentially blackmailing teenagers. The danger is hiding right where children feel “at home” — in their chats and online games.
According to the National Police, between 2023 and 2024, at least 368 complaints were filed in Ukraine about Telegram channels that spread photos of schoolchildren and humiliated them. Yet only 13 criminal cases were opened, and some of them were later closed. Under current law, cyberbullying is considered an administrative offense, not a criminal one, showing the vast gap between the scale of the problem and the capacity of law enforcement.
The situation with CSAM is just as alarming. In July 2025, cyber police reported shutting down the servers of a Ukrainian provider that was distributing “up to 70% of child pornography in the Ukrainian segment of the internet.”
High-profile cases prove the scale of the threat. In 2024, cyber police blocked a Telegram channel where administrators posted children’s photos and demanded money to remove them. In the Ukrainian city of Poltava, police, together with parents and teachers, shut down another channel created specifically to cyberbully schoolchildren.
Despite the efforts, new channels appear every time one channel is closed. Human rights activists confirm, saying some channels are shut down, but “new ones pop up too quickly.” Rubryka checked this claim and found that it was indeed easy to find a channel of that kind on Telegram, one of Ukraine’s most popular messengers. Photos of minors are posted there daily, many with degrading captions or sexual overtones.
One of the mentioned Telegram channels, in which photos of children and teenagers appear with shameful captions or sexual overtones.
What’s the solution?
Ukraine has been slowly building a systemic response to online violence against children. A few years ago, law enforcement mostly reacted after the fact, but between 2023 and 2025, they introduced more comprehensive steps.
Ukraine’s cyber police block resources spreading CSAM and run special operations. For example, in July 2025, they shut down servers of a Ukrainian provider that had been distributing up to 70% of child pornography in Ukraine’s online space.
There are also steps in education. In October 2024, the Ministry of Education and Science launched the AICOM platform, which lets students, parents, and teachers anonymously report bullying and cyberbullying. Hundreds of reports have already been submitted and automatically forwarded to school leaders and, if needed, police.
In 2023, the Ministry of Digital Transformation created interactive online safety simulators on the Diia.Education platform. Children, parents, and teachers can practice acting during cyber threats, grooming, or scams through game-based scenarios. In June 2024, Google Ukraine launched the Children’s Online Safety platform with teaching materials for educators, parental control tools (Family Link), the interactive game Interland, and digital literacy tips for teens.
Together, these steps show an attempt to build a layered system of protection — from police operations to preventive tools, from school reporting to interactive lessons.
Civil society organizations play an equally important role. The Ukrainian nonprofit Magnolia became Ukraine’s official INHOPE hotline in 2023 and, in 2024, a full member of the international INHOPE network — a coalition of 54 countries fighting CSAM. This collaboration gives Ukraine access to the global database and allows for much faster removal of illegal content.
In March 2024, Magnolia, together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the National Cyber Police, launched the StopCrime portal, where anyone can anonymously report suspected sexual crimes against children online and learn about online safety. Verified information is immediately sent to law enforcement for investigation, and reports may also be forwarded to police abroad and Interpol.
How does it work?
Magnolia analysts review reports daily. In the first half of 2025, the StopCrime hotline processed 1,538 reports, of which 812 were confirmed as cases of child sexual abuse. According to the organization, their baseline goal is to remove these files from the internet, and the ultimate goal is to initiate an investigation and bring offenders to justice. Of those 812 confirmed cases, 62% were passed to Ukraine’s cyber police, 38% to foreign law enforcement, and in four criminal cases, StopCrime analysts are testifying as witnesses.
Collaboration with the cyber police has proven effective. Olha Sheremet, coordinator of the Safe Internet Center, another Magnolia project, explains:
“The harmful links we get through the portal are quickly blocked after verification. At the start of the year, a big problem was providers of child pornography whose owners or renters were foreign citizens. However, after repeated appeals, the Cyber Police and the State Service for Special Communications found a way to block the domain names of these providers. We see this as a breakthrough in fighting online violence.”
Photo: Rubryka
In March, cyber police in the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi uncovered a man who was distributing child pornography for money. Police say the arrest was possible thanks to StopCrime. Citizens had sent a web link with illegal content to the portal, and Magnolia staff analyzed it and forwarded it to the cyber police. The man was arrested and now faces up to 15 years in prison.
Another vital tool is the 116 111 hotline, which works around the clock and handles reports of missing children and violence. In 2024, it received 1,915 calls. In the first half of 2025 alone, its experts gave nearly 95,000 consultations, including 3,739 about children’s online safety. Thousands of children have already been helped.
Prevention and response: Ukraine and abroad
“The biggest problem is that only a few people ever go to the police with complaints about sexting or grooming (though Ukrainian children are regularly asked to share intimate photos, receive sexually explicit messages, or get sent erotic images or videos),” says Olha Sheremet.
According to her, most sensitive situations, where children risk becoming or actually become victims of sexual violence online, never even get discussed with adults:
“Children are afraid of shame, punishment, or being misunderstood. And that’s no surprise. Media literacy and digital hygiene are still lacking — not only in Ukrainian children but also in their parents, and often even teachers. Sometimes, a child doesn’t have that ‘trusted adult’ to whom they can turn for help. The education system needs to adapt to these challenges with preventive programs. That’s why we created our projects, such as StopCrime, so anyone can anonymously report unacceptable child-related content online, and the Safe Internet Center, where a responsible adult can find advice on how to talk to a child about sensitive issues and where to turn for help,” says Olha Sheremet.
To prevent abuse, Magnolia also runs awareness campaigns: film screenings in schools, expert discussions with teachers, law enforcement, parents, journalists, and human rights defenders, pamphlet distribution, and webinars for educators and police school safety officers.
How do other countries handle this problem?
Other countries are also taking action against online violence toward children. For instance, Romania has the program Ora de Net (“Internet Class”), which the international nonprofit Save the Children launched 17 years ago to offer research, education, and counseling. Based on findings, experts study children’s online behavior, hold school sessions, and provide consultations for both kids and parents.
Media literacy summer school organised by Center for Independent Journalism in Romania. Photo: Andrei Apolzan
To fill the information gap in rural schools, World Vision Romania runs sessions about all forms of violence against children. Teachers, parents, and students receive brochures with clear steps: how to collect evidence, when to call the police, and more.
Another Romanian project is a digital detox camp launched in summer 2025. For seven days, children lived without technology — no phones, tablets, or TV. Instead, they experienced offline activities, learned about their needs, overcame personal barriers, and became more aware of how they use their phones.
Performance of ‘Girls Like That’. Photo: Henry Sorribes, via Maldita.es
Spain is using participatory theatre to prompt positive changes on the matter and empower victims. One of such plays is “Girls Like That” about the dissemination of intimate images without the consent of the protagonist. This approach allows the audience to put themselves in the shoes of people whose experiences differ from theirs. Another instrument in Spain’s arsenal is artificial intelligence to fight online abuse. The foundation Fad Juventud created an AI chatbot called Sof-IA to “improve the well-being and quality of life of young people.” The chat, integrated into Telegram, answers questions about drug use, emotional stress, and situations involving digital violence. One more tool, DEL.IA, developed at the Autonomous University of Madrid, advises users on reporting online and offline hate crimes. Using voice recognition, the DEL.IA “empathetically helps victims recognize an incident as a hate crime and guides them through the steps they need to take.”
How to protect your child online?
We collected some important safety tips from guides on preventing sexual violence against children:
- Set up private mode on social media. Make sure your child entered their real age during registration. The network won’t show adult content if your child is under 13. Many platforms allow private accounts, meaning strangers can’t see posts unless approved. Agree with your child that followers should only be people they know in real life. Review together who follows them and who they follow.
- Use parental controls. These tools let you limit access to harmful content, track activity, and set time limits. Controls can be put directly in platforms (like Instagram’s Family Center or Facebook’s Privacy Checkup), through operating systems (Android, iOS), or apps like Kidslox or Kroha Parental Control.
- Talk openly and trustfully to your child. If a child knows they won’t be judged, they’re more likely to share problems before they escalate.
“Parents need to build trust with their children first. Talk about online safety from a young age — don’t wait until you think they’re old enough for, say, intimate messaging. Advise them to delete intimate photos or videos from their devices, whether of themselves or others. Don’t shame or condemn them for what they’ve done online. Instead, ask why they did it and whether they’re facing problems,” recommends Olha Sheremet.
And remember! If you come across material online that depicts sexual violence or exploitation of children — or any other illegal content — you can report it to your local law enforcement.
If you live in Ukraine, file your report with:
- Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine: 0800 50 51 70 (toll-free) or [email protected]
- National children and youth hotline: 116 111
- StopCrime.ua, where anyone can anonymously send a link to suspected child sexual abuse material.
This article was created with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
Authors: Patricia Ruiz Guevara, Carmen Martínez Vidal, Magdalena Torga Mellado, Viktoriia Hubareva, Andra Mureșan, Venera Dimulescu
