Imagery of young children carrying out sexual acts on camera has risen by more than tenfold since the pandemic lockdowns, new data suggests.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) says its data highlights how predators took advantage of the situation.
Social media websites exploded in popularity in early 2020 when the pandemic began.
Last year the IWF logged more than 63,000 webpages showing the material compared to 5,000 before the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, the internet was a lifeline but we are only now unpacking the full effects,” said IWF chief executive Susie Hargreaves.
“What is clear to us is that younger children are being pulled into abusive situations by rapacious predators, often while they are in their own bedrooms.”
Overall the IWF tracks, investigates and attempts to remove hundreds of thousands of incidents of child sexual abuse material from around the internet worldwide.
The charity says it is confident that the rise in self-generated material it is seeing is because of an increase in activity, because reporting levels have remained relatively similar in recent years.
Read more: Lockdowns linked to tenfold rise in child sex imagery
