A record rise in child sexual abuse material hosted in European Union countries has been revealed by a new report.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found that 62 per cent of all child sexual abuse webpages traced in 2024 were hosted in the EU.
The Netherlands emerged as the leading location, with more than 83,000 criminal URLs linked to servers based in the country.
Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, and Poland also saw worrying increases in the amount of abusive material they hosted last year.
Altogether, the IWF confirmed over 291,000 reports containing child sexual abuse imagery, the highest number ever recorded by the organisation.
Each report assessed could include one or even thousands of disturbing images or videos of child abuse, according to the IWF.
Derek Ray-Hill, Interim CEO of the IWF, said urgent action is needed to protect vulnerable children across the world from online harm.
He called for swift adoption of new EU legislation aimed at tackling the rapid spread of abuse material, especially AI-generated content.
Children aged between 7 and 10 were most commonly depicted, with young girls nearly four times more targeted than boys.
Demand for this criminal content is largely driven by men from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Europe.
Meanwhile, major tech firms like Meta, Discord, and Nintendo have been urged to strengthen efforts against child sexual exploitation online.
The European Parliament and Council are now debating stricter rules to combat this horrific online abuse effectively.
