How common is online sexual harassment among children in Australia?

¹ _{Under the legislation, which came into effect on 10 December 2025, age-restricted social media platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent Australian children under 16 from creating or holding accounts.}

² _{Part of a nationally representative survey of 3,454 children aged 10 to 17 years living in Australia between December 2024 and February 2025.}

³ _{For more information about the methodology of the research, see the methodology report.}

⁴ _{Children were given the option of skipping certain sensitive questions in the survey, including those on online sexual harassment. Among the 3,454 children surveyed, 820 declined to see the questions on online sexual harassment, while 167 indicated that they didn’t really understand what sexual comments and messages are and consequently were not shown these questions. The prevalence of online sexual harassment reported here is therefore based on a subset of the overall sample (n=2,467).}

⁵ _{The smaller sample size for trans and gender-diverse children should be considered when interpreting these findings (n=68).}

⁶ _{‘Sexually diverse’ includes participants who identified their sexual orientation as 'gay or lesbian’, ‘bisexual’, ‘queer’, ‘asexual’, ‘pansexual’ or that they are ‘still working it out’. Sexuality was asked only of children aged 13–17.}

⁷ _{Arrows denote statistically significant differences between sub-groups. The proportion of children aged 13 to 15 and 16 to 17 who had experienced online sexual harassment in the past 12 months didn’t differ significantly.}

⁸ _{Q: Has anyone ever …?}

⁹ _{Only asked of children aged 13 and over (n=1,625).}

¹⁰ _{As above.}

¹¹ _{The creation or sharing of nude images of children constitutes, in most instances, child sexual exploitation material.}

¹² _{Only asked of children aged 13 and over (n=1,625).}

¹³ _{A subset of children who had experienced online sexual harassment (n=401) were asked further questions about their most recent experience of online sexual harassment.}

¹⁴ _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. Who did this? You can choose more than one answer.}

¹⁵ _{Q: Think now about the last time someone you already knew in real life [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. Who did this? You can choose more than one answer.}

¹⁶ _{Q: Think about the last time someone you didn’t know in real life [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. How would you describe them? You can choose more than one answer.}

¹⁷ _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. How old do you think the person who did this was? You can choose more than one answer.}

¹⁸   _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. What gender do you think the person who did this was? You can choose more than one answer.}

¹⁹ _{Q: Think about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. Which platform did this happen to you on? You can choose more than one answer.}

²⁰ _{Platforms reported by <5% of children combined as ‘Another online platform’.}

²¹ _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. Where did this happen to you? You can choose more than one answer.}

²² _{Q: The last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE], did it only happen online, or was the same person also doing things like this to you in real life?}

²³ _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. How did you feel? You can choose more than one answer.}

²⁴ _{Q: Keep thinking about the last time someone [RECENT EXPERIENCE]. Did you have any difficulties because of this experience? You can choose more than one answer.}