About 20 million internet-using children across ​21 countries were subjected to sexual exploitation or abuse on digital platforms in a single year, with most cases occurring ‌on social media platforms, a new report by the U.N. children’s charity said on Thursday.

More than one in five children aged 12 to 17 across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe experienced at least one form of sexual abuse or exploitation on online platforms in the year before being surveyed, the UNICEF report estimated, Reuters reported.

Roughly 15 ​million children in the countries surveyed were exposed to unwanted sexual content, 9 million were pressured into sexual conversations or sharing sexual ​images, and 4 million had sexual images shared without their consent, the report found.

The number of children subjected to ⁠this abuse globally is certain to run into many tens of millions, it said.

The research, which UNICEF described as one of the largest studies ​of its kind, was based on national representative surveys collected between 2020 and 2025 of around 21,000 internet-using children in the 21 countries, which ​included Kenya, Pakistan, Brazil and Serbia.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS

Almost 60% of reported abuse occurred on social media platforms, led by Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, while 14% took place in online gaming, the report found.

A spokesperson for Meta which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said the surveys go as far back as 2020, before the company introduced ​protections UNICEF recommends such as automatically defaulting teens into private accounts and preventing adults from messaging teens they are not connected to. It added ​that it defines WhatsApp as a private messaging app and not a social media platform.

“While the report doesn’t provide any specific evidence of abuse, we’ll continue to ‌fight child ⁠exploitation aggressively across our apps and support law enforcement in prosecuting the criminals behind it,” the Meta spokesperson said.

Snapchat pointed Reuters to a blog post by Global Head of Platform Safety Jacqueline Beauchere, who said the company was actively combating online sexual extortion through proactive detection, account removals, user reporting tools and safety features designed to protect vulnerable users.

TikTok said it has built a range of safeguards to protect minors, including restricting certain features ​for younger users, making accounts for ​under-18s private by default, and ⁠using technology to detect potentially predatory behaviour.

The UNICEF report said more than half the cases involved someone the child already knew, including friends, relatives or romantic partners, while 38% of children first encountered the perpetrator online.

Fewer than ​1% of cases involving children were reported to the police, a social worker or a helpline, according to ​the research.

The report ⁠also highlighted growing concerns over artificial intelligence. Across nine countries where data was collected, an estimated 1.1 million children reported having AI-generated sexual images or videos created depicting them.

Children who experienced tech-facilitated sexual exploitation were around four times more likely to report suicidal thoughts or self-harm and reported significantly higher levels of ⁠anxiety than ​their peers, the research said.

“These experiences cause profound emotional and mental distress. Many children suffer ​in silence, unsure where to turn for help,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

UNICEF urged governments and technology companies to strengthen safety measures on digital platforms, update ​laws to address evolving forms of abuse including AI-generated content, and improve child protection and reporting systems.

A Chinese humanoid robot has beaten Usain Bolt’s long-standing 100-metre world record, setting the stage for a spectacular second World Humanoid Robot Games that opened in Beijing on Saturday.

Tiangong Ultra clocked 9.39 seconds in the 100-metre sprint at the games, surpassing Bolt’s human world record of 9.58 seconds, set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The robot, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, narrowly defeated another humanoid, Honor’s Lightning, which finished in 9.47 seconds.

Lightning had already recorded an even faster 9.32 seconds during a trial run before the games. It reached a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second.

The record-breaking sprint was one of the highlights of the opening day of the five-day event, which is being held at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval, a venue built for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games brings together 666 teams and 2,056 robots from 16 countries. The competition features 51 events and more than 1,000 matches across sports including running, football and table tennis, as well as other challenges designed to test the capabilities of humanoid machines.

Robots also surpassed another major human athletic benchmark. A humanoid developed by Beijing-based X-Humanoid reached 2.88 metres in the standing high jump, exceeding the human world record of 2.45 metres set by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor in 1993.

The dramatic improvement in the 100-metre sprint is particularly striking. At last year’s inaugural games, Tiangong Ultra completed the same race in 21.50 seconds.

The rapid progress is part of China’s broader push to develop humanoid robots as a major emerging industry, with companies and policymakers investing heavily in artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced hardware for potential use in manufacturing, logistics and consumer applications.

Despite the impressive performances, the robots still face challenges that human athletes have long mastered. After Saturday’s sprint, Tiangong Ultra stumbled, while Lightning collapsed and had to be removed on a stretcher, highlighting difficulties with balance and braking at high speeds.

The games run through August 26 and are showcasing the rapid evolution of humanoid robots while also testing how far the machines can perform in increasingly demanding real-world sporting environments.

Enayatullah Alokozay, spokesperson for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said Thursday the ministry has signed a contract with Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC) for the construction of 31 telecommunications towers worth more than 269 million AFN under the 11th project of the Telecommunications Development Fund (TDF).

Alokozay said in a post on X that the towers will be built in 13 districts across Kandahar, Paktika, Helmand and Zabul provinces.

He added that the towers will provide services in areas that so far have had no access to any telecommunications services.