Sextortion Factsheet
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What is Sextortion?
Sexual extortion, also called 'sextortion', is a form of blackmail.
The perpetrator demands sexual favors, money, or other benefits under the threat of sharing intimate or sexually explicit material. Sextortion can also be a more serious type of fraud, where malicious actors use deepfake technology to create explicit content featuring the victim's face, which they then use to demand a ransom or real explicit photos.
There has been an 'explosion' of financial sexual extortion schemes targeting children and teens. It is a persuasive threat in which criminals from anywhere in the world can reach children online and inflict serious damage. There are safety and wellbeing concerns for children who are caught up in sextortion, with suicide and self-harm attributed to this offending globally.