WASHINGTON: About 1.5 million internet-using children in Pakistan experienced sexual exploitation or abuse facilitated by digital technology in a single year, according to new research, as a senior United Nations official warns that artificial intelligence and overlapping global crises are creating new dangers for children.

Presenting her final report to the UN General Assembly on Monday, Najat Maalla M’jid, the secretary general’s Special Representative on Violence Against Children, urged governments to strengthen protections for children facing multiple and overlapping crises.

“Almost 45 million children are displaced because of conflict, but also because of natural disasters, because of the climate crisis,” she told journalists at UN Headquarters in New York.

Rapid advances in technology are creating new risks alongside opportunities for children to learn and communicate.

Artificial intelligence has opened what Ms M’jid described as “huge avenues for child sexual exploitation”, as well as “cyberbullying, deepfakes and the recruitment of children into criminal activities.” Her presentation marked 20 years since the first UN global study on violence against children.

Despite progress, she warned, the world continued to face complex and overlapping crises in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Troubling picture Nearly one in 16 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 in Pakistan — approximately 1.5 million children — experienced at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year, according to Disrupting Harm in Pakistan, a study published by Unicef, ECPAT International and INTERPOL in September 2026.

The UN General Assembly on Monday identified AI-generated sexual material as an emerging risk.

The abuses include unwanted sexual images or conversations, demands for intimate photographs, the non-consensual sharing of children’s images, and sexual threats or blackmail.

The findings challenge the perception that online abuse is mainly perpetrated by strangers.

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