00:00And in a classroom of 20 children, this means that at least four may have experienced grooming.
00:08A child's experience online can have consequences far beyond a screen.
00:13A new report from Missing Children Europe says grooming, sexual exploitation and child disappearance are often closely connected with children
00:22targeted through social media, gaming platforms and messaging apps.
00:26Researchers say the risks are not always recognised early enough, allowing harmful situations to escalate into abuse, exploitation or, in
00:36some cases, a child going missing.
00:38One in five children in Western Europe experience online solicitation or grooming before the age of 18.
00:46Grooming is a deliberate process where an adult builds trust with a child in order to sexually exploiting or abusing
00:56them.
00:58Increasingly, this is happening through digital platforms and online spaces where children spend a large part of their social lives.
01:07These figures are deeply alarming because behind every statistic is a child.
01:14The impact on children can be long lasting.
01:17It can affect their emotional well-being, relationships, trust, behaviour and also mental health while going into adulthood.
01:27The report describes grooming as a deliberate process in which perpetrators build trust with a child online before seeking to
01:35exploit or abuse them.
01:37According to the findings, this can lead to a range of harms, including the non-consensual sharing of intimate images,
01:45sexual extortion, live streaming of child sexual abuse, in-person abuse and other forms of sexual exploitation.
01:52Researchers say perpetrators increasingly adapt their methods to the online spaces children use every day.
01:59It's highly manipulative and offenders adapt their tactics depending on the child they are targeting.
02:07Sometimes it can happen over months and sometimes it can happen just within a single day.
02:16However, there are some common warning signs.
02:19First of all, groomers often begin by building trust with a child.
02:25So they will show attention, they will give compliments to the child or to the teenager.
02:32They will also offer emotional support, sometimes gifts, to create a sense of common closeness and understanding with the child.
02:42Then they would frequently frame the relationship as something special, being it romantic or friendship-based.
02:52And they would always say that it's something secret between the two, encouraging the child to feel emotionally attached to
03:01the offender and to see the interaction as consensual or normal.
03:05Third, secrecy is a major red flag.
03:09Groomers often say things like, this is our secret, keep it between ourselves and they will try to isolate the
03:21child, both from their group of friends, but also from trusted adults.
03:27And finally, another warning sign that we can try to spot in this kind of cases is that conversation will
03:38quite quickly become sexual.
03:41Then the offender will ask for photos, videos or intimate conversations with the child.
03:50And throughout this whole process, manipulation is used to maintain emotional dependency and control of the child from the offender.
04:00The report argues that online grooming and child disappearance can reinforce one another.
04:06It says some children are manipulated in a leaving home by perpetrators, while others may run away because of fear,
04:12shame or distress linked to exploitation.
04:15Researchers also warn that children who have already gone missing can become more vulnerable to grooming.
04:22In 2025, Europe's Missing Children Hotlines identified 92 cases where online grooming was linked to a child going missing.
04:30The report says illegal gaps, limited prevention work and weaknesses in information sharing continue to affect efforts to protect children.
04:39Open communication is one of the strongest forms of prevention.
04:44So for parents, our advice is not to panic, but to always stay involved in the children's online lives in
04:53the same way they do with their offline lives.
04:56Mehta, who own Facebook and Instagram, report they have developed a three-pronged industry-leading approach in order to protect
05:04young people online.
05:05They report that they focus on preventing harm from happening in the first place, doing so by enforcing zero tolerance
05:12policies.
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