The alarm

Telefono Azzurro, AI-generated child sex abuse videos are booming

This figure was released on the occasion of the National Day against paedophilia and child pornography and is contained in Telefono Azzurro's 2025 dossier presented in Rome. The most affected age group in CSAM - child sexual abuse material - is 10/13 years old, while in 87.5% of cases the perpetrator is a man

by Letizia Giostra

5 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Composite and alarming picture
Artificial intelligence accelerates risk
Grooming, sextortion and Ia: here are the sharks of the web
370 million women victims before the age of 18
The figures of Telefono Azzurro's services
From the National Report to Parliament to the strengthening of the Postal Police: proposals

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

With the publication of the Epstein Files, the world has once again come to question pedophilia and child pornography. Disturbing numbers, behind which are hidden stories of minors deprived of their innocence. The data on the phenomenon collected by Telefono Azzurro for the National Day tell of a growing problem, on which the darker side of artificial intelligence also looms large.

Alarming composite picture

The element that emerges from the 2025 dossier presented on Tuesday 5 May in Rome is that abuse is not only online. In fact, the data from the Telefono Azzurro services paint a composite and alarming picture. Concerning 114 Emergency Childhood, in 52.4% of cases the primary category is sexual abuse, while sextortion accounts for 25.8%. The area 'Abuse and Violence' prevails with 56% of the cases - physical risk, in presence, has not disappeared behind the screens. Then there is line 1.96.96: here the digital dimension is dominant (66.7% of cases in the Digital area), with sextortion as the most frequent category (47.2%). But 25.9% of cases still concern offline sexual abuse. Lastly, the Trusted Flagger: 77% of CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) reports concern websites, confirming an infrastructural dimension of the problem, not just a relational one.

Artificial intelligence accelerates risk

The most alarming figure concerns artificial intelligence. In 2025, the Internet Watch Foundation evaluated 8,029 artificially generated CSAM images and videos, including 3,443 videos: an increase of 26,385% compared to only 13 videos detected the previous year. 65% of this material falls into the highest severity category. To make the picture even more worrying, an Ofcom survey found that 61% of those who had already searched or viewed CSAM were unable to distinguish AI-generated content from real content: a condition that risks fuelling demand by making supply invisible.

Telefono Azzurro calls for violence through AI to be judged as criminally relevant as violence against 'real' minors, in the flesh.

In Italia, in 2025, 76.5% of the reports managed by Telefono Azzurro's Trusted Flagger service concerned CSAM material. The reports mainly involve websites (77%), with a social component (12.2%) and file sharing (10%). When information on the age of the victims is available, the 10-13 year olds (35.7%) and 7-10 year olds (32.5%) prevail: children who are unlikely to trigger a request for help or a report on their own.

Grooming, sextortion and Ia: here are the sharks of the web

Hundreds of millions of people have suffered sexual violence in childhood, and in Italy too, cases of crimes against minors confirm a worrying situation. It was Unicef that took the snapshot of the phenomenon, which also warns of the different types of instruments that paedophiles use to lure their prey: grooming, sextortion and images generated by artificial intelligence are just some of their techniques.

370 million women victims before the age of 18

According to a global perspective calculated by Unicef in 2024, more than 370 million women will have been raped or sexually assaulted before reaching the age of majority, while Childlight 2025 figures show that in Western Europe 4.7 per cent of minors were raped before the age of 18. Another alarming figure came from Istat, which states that in 2025, girls diagnosed with sexual violence in Italian emergency rooms were between 3 and 10 years old, representing 41.6 per cent of the total.

From the National Report to Parliament to the strengthening of the Postal Police: the proposals

There are 10 proposals by Telefono Azzurro to fight crimes against minors, starting with making the National Plan 2025-2027 binding and monitorable and publishing a National Report to Parliament every 5 May. The idea is then to set up a Barnahus Italia Network, with child-friendly multidisciplinary centres for all regions, and to create an integrated national data dashboard. Then comes the introduction of mandatory safeguarding standards for schools, sports, religious communities, the third sector and voluntary work.

The aim is then to strengthen the role of listening and reporting services, including digital channels, and to establish a Survivor Advisory Council, to listen to victims and survivors in the construction of public policies. Strengthen the Postal Police and specialised prosecutors' offices, and oblige platforms and providers to respond quickly, traceably and transparently, plus mandatory training for all adults working with minors.