A/HRC/52/61 children which are related to control, persistence of material depicting their abuse, blackmail, revictimization and self-blame.23 55. Drawing on the results of surveys in 11 countries across four regions, the Global Kids Online research initiative has addressed different aspects of violence against children online, including exposure to harmful and inappropriate content.24 Less than one quarter of children in surveyed countries said that they had seen online content related to physical self-harm in the past year. Children were slightly less likely to have seen online content related to suicide compared with self-harm and in all countries analysed, fewer than 20 per cent of children reported encountering online content on suicide. Children’s exposure to hate content is more common than their exposure to content related to self-harm or suicide. There is evidence that online hate targets mostly race, sexual orientation, religion, nationality or immigration status, sex or gender, and politics. Regarding exposure to violent or sexual content, fewer than 40 per cent of children in the past year had come across websites where people talked about or displayed gory or violent images or had seen images of a sexual nature. Among boys, viewing pornography is associated with sexually aggressive behaviour and having negative gender attitudes. A lower level of happiness and life satisfaction is found to be associated with exposure to content promoting self-injury and suicide, gory or violent content, sexual content and hate speech.25 56. Overall, the research of Global Kids Online indicated that children were more likely to report having been upset in the past year if they had encountered hate speech or sexual content online, had been treated in a hurtful way or had met someone face to face that they first met online. No direct relationship was found between watching videos, playing games or interacting socially online and the likelihood of children’s being upset. However, if the activity exposes children to certain content or conduct then they may find it upsetting.26 57. UNODC has highlighted the use of technology by traffickers to profile, recruit, control and exploit their victims, as well as the use of the Internet, particularly use of the dark web, to hide illegal materials associated with trafficking and their real identities from investigators.27 OSCE notes that the Internet has enabled the expansion of the market for trafficking in human beings, allowing offenders to operate more efficiently and to extend their reach to meet demand.28 When children are moved across borders, as evidenced through the unprecedented scale of displacement in the world today, such risks are multiplied. 58. Children are recruited and exploited by terrorist and violent extremist groups through use of the digital environment. UNODC notes that cartoons, computer games and other interactive media on the Internet have been designed to appeal to children in particular and that children are approached through both grooming and targeted advertising techniques.29 The digital environment has also expanded access to potential victims of exploitation and abuse in the context of travel and tourism, with offenders being increasingly able to share information and make contact with children, with intermediaries and with each other. Another key concern is that children who express their views and identities online may face threats, hostility and punishment. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 12 Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis and others, Everyone Deserves to be Happy and Safe: A Mixed Methods Study Exploring how Online and Offline Child Sexual Abuse Impact Young People and how Professionals Respond to it (London, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 2017). Sonia Livingstone, Daniel Kardefelt Winther and Marium Saeed, Global Kids Online Comparative Report (Florence, Italy, UNICEF Office of Research (Innocenti), 2019). Stoilova, Livingstone and Khazbak, “Investigating risks and opportunities for children in a digital world”. Livingstone, Kardefelt Winther and Saeed, Global Kids Online. See https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1104392#:~:text=Traffickers%20abusing%20online%20 technology%2C%20UN%20crime%20prevention%20agency%20warns,30%20October%202021&text=Human%20traffickers%20who%20trick%20people,step%20of%20the ir%20criminal%20activities. See https://www.osce.org/cthb/51414.1. UNODC, Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups: The Role of the Justice System (Vienna, 2017). GE.22-29128