Cybersex, Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sex Robots, Sex Dolls
Avatar-Mediated Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: Understanding its Manifestations, Impact on Children, and Legal Safeguards.
Open Access: Yes.
Abstract
This paper examines avatar-mediated child sexual abuse and exploitation (AMCSAE) as an emerging form of child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). Drawing on interdisciplinary legal research and doctrinal legal research, the article explores how AMCSAE materializes through interaction- and form-based risks, and how mediated embodiment intensifies its psychological, physical, relational, and economic harms. Situating AMCSAE within the broader CSAE continuum, it conceptualizes the phenomenon as a specific form of technology-facilitated CSAE and proposes a working definition that highlights the mediating role of avatars. The analysis further demonstrates how AMCSAE violates children’s rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (OPSC). By clarifying risks, harms, and legal implications, the article provides a foundation for further research towards mitigating AMCSAE.
Relevance
“This research rejects hierarchies that suggest some forms of CSAE are more serious than others. All forms of CSAE, whether offline or digital, exist along a continuum of violence and must be treated with equal gravity…The distinction between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ risks trivialises children’s experiences in immersive environments…there is nothing unreal about the harm inflicted through CSAE, regardless of the medium in which it occurs. Accordingly, the potential for harm in all forms of CSAE must be regarded as equally serious, with the severity of impact determined not by the medium but by the child’s individual experience, the nature of the abuse, and the availability of support…The harm caused by AMCSAE is deeply personal, amplified by mediated embodiment, which blurs the boundary between digital and physical experience.”
‘Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is a continuum reflecting the interconnected and recurring nature of abusive and exploitative acts against children across offline and online environments…Framing CSAE as a continuum challenges hierarchies of harm that privilege offline abuse as more severe or “real” than online forms, emphasising instead that all manifestations of CSAE can be profoundly harmful.”
“This paper has shown that avatar-mediated child sexual abuse and exploitation is not a marginal phenomenon but a technologically specific manifestation of the broader CSAE continuum. It materialises through interaction-based risks (grooming via avatars, sextortion, non-consensual simulated sexual acts) and form-based risks (avatar-based CSAM and the manipulation of a child’s avatar for sexualised performances). Children experience the abuse as directed at the self, with mediated embodiment intensifying psychological, physical, relational and economic harms. The harms identified here, meaning psychological trauma, physical symptoms and self-harm, relational disruption, and economic loss, demonstrate that AMCSAE is neither trivial nor merely “virtual”; its consequences can be profound and enduring.”
Citation
Pasvanti Gkioka, C. (2026). Avatar-Mediated Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: Understanding its Manifestations, Impact on Children, and Legal Safeguards. The International Journal of Children’s Rights (published online ahead of print 2026). https://doi.org/10.1163/15718182-bja10081
