Children as young as 6 years old are being recruited into organised crime networks, exposed to violence, taught to fear authority and to perpetrate harm onto others. When this happens, it is important not to see them as offenders, but as victims of a much larger criminal system. We need to ask what circumstances brought them there, who benefits from their involvement, and how they may have become targets of wider exploitation.
The lines between different forms of victimisation are becoming harder to draw. Online and offline harms increasingly overlap, from grooming, sextortion and image-based abuse to recruitment, trafficking, violent extremism, and forced criminality. A child may be contacted, coerced and pressured, blackmailed with digital content, or drawn into exploitation through fear, isolation, dependency, shame and control. Protecting children from organised crime must center on disrupting exploitation at its roots, not only responding after the damage has been done.
Europe should move from a reactive approach to child victimisation towards one based on risk reduction, early support and resilience. By strengthening early identification, before harm becomes entrenched, and improving coordination among victim support services, schools, families, digital platforms, child protection services, and justice systems, Europe can intervene more efficiently. Thus, this coordinated approach would reduce the vulnerabilities that organised crime exploits.
When Exploitation Looks Like Offending
A difficult challenge is that exploitation does not always look like victimisation at first sight. A child may come to the attention of authorities because of drug-related activity, theft, online fraud, violence or recruitment by older peers. Often, society questions “what has the child done?” However, when organised crime is involved, more questions need to be asked.
Children are extra vulnerable to coercion. Recruited children may be promised money, status or protection. Others may be told that their family will be harmed, that they owe something, or that private images will be shared if they do not comply. By the time authorities intervene, often, the child has already been coached on how to deter suspicion and given strict instructions on what to say and how to behave.
Harmful behaviour should be ignored, but justice systems must be able to hold two realities at once: a child may have caused harm and be a victim of exploitation. A better response would ask who recruited the child, who profits from their actions, what pressure they are under, and are there signs of trafficking, coercion, or control. Without those questions, exploited children may be punished while the adults and networks behind the exploitation remain invisible.
The same logic applies to sexual exploitation. Organised crime uses sexual abuse, abuse material, and forced criminality not only as sources of profit, but also as tools of blackmail and coercion, including to draw children into further offending. Criminal behaviours as such should not be treated as separate forms of harm, but as interconnected expressions of a wider exploitation economy built on children’s vulnerability.
Gender, Disclosure and the Children We Do Not See
The gender dimension is essential. People of all genders are impacted by organised crime, but the crimes perpetrated against them can differ widely.
Young men and boys are being targeted and recruited into organised crime, carrying out acts such as violence as a service, drug trafficking, cyberattacks, and more. This increases their risk of committing serious crime as well as falling victim to more extreme violence.
Girls are more visible in sexual violence data and are disproportionately affected by sexual exploitation, grooming, image-based abuse and online gender-based violence. In Greece, helpline data showed that 80% of reported CSA victims were girls*. In Portugal, APAV recorded 1,206 occurrences of sexual crimes against girls compared with 215 against boys.
LGBTQI+ youth face additional vulnerabilities. While exact figures are unknown due to scarce research, the intersectional needs of LGBTIQ+ youth need to be accounted for in relation to organised crime. Family rejection due to sexual orientation or gender identity emerges as the primary cause of homelessness, affecting 71% of LGBTIQ+ youth, which makes them particularly vulnerable to all forms of exploitation.
These dimensions raise many questions: how are minors being targeted? In what crimes are they being involved? What barriers are young victims facing? Are they safe to report? A gender-sensitive response must understand how children experience harm, disclose it, and are identified. In organised exploitation, invisibility protects perpetrators. A child who is silenced is easier to control.
Delayed Protection, Deeper Exploitation: How Organised Crime Profits from Slow Responses
The harm can continue long after the initial abuse in cases involving Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), making this wider exploitation economy especially visible. CSAM may be shared, sold, reposted, or used for blackmail, allowing offenders and networks to maintain control and generate profit. Victims may be threatened with exposure, pressured to produce additional material, or silenced through shame and fear, with each redistribution renewing victimisation and deepening a sense of no escape.
The EU currently hosts 63% of the world’s criminal child sexual abuse webpages, which is allowing offenders and networks to fund, expand, and conceal other forms of exploitation. In this sense, child sexual abuse (CSA) and CSAM also sustain criminal markets and networks that undermine the safety and trust of society. Online anonymity makes this a global issue, as CSAM is shared across borders.
The recent agreement on updated EU rules to combat CSA is important, but also displays how slow the response has been; permanent safeguarding tools are needed. The revision of the CSA Directive has taken years to reach political agreement, while the proposed CSAM Regulation remains pending after years of difficult negotiations. Simultaneously, the previous interim measure allowing online service providers to voluntarily detect, report and remove CSAM expired in April 2026, creating a protection gap placing children at risk. The Council has now adopted its position on reinstating the temporary measure until 2028. Meanwhile, children are being harmed, abuse material continues to circulate, and technology is becoming faster, more sophisticated, and easier to misuse against those who are most vulnerable.
Perpetrators do not wait for institutions to agree. Offenders adapt quickly, using new methods to reach children, silence them and profit from their abuse. A robust and permanent legal framework is still necessary, but it cannot undo the harm suffered by children whose images have been shared, whose abuse has been livestreamed, or whose silence has been secured through fear and blackmail. Victim support services need to be prepared to support these children. VSE member APAV found continued victimisation affects 36.4% of girls and 37.5% of boys, with cases lasting between two and six years before contact with specialist services.
A serious response to CSA must look beyond criminalisation. It must ask if children can disclose safely, if abuse material is removed quickly, whether victims receive long-term support, if platforms are held accountable, and if professionals are trained to recognise trauma, coercion and control. Otherwise, Europe risks celebrating legal progress while children continue to experience the consequences of systems that move too slowly.
So, is it possible to protect children?
Protecting children from organised crime requires more than law enforcement. It requires systems that recognise exploitation before it is too late, regardless of whether these crimes are occurring online or offline. Crimes like these have real-world impact; it is essential to have streamlined and coordinated approaches to protect and support child victims, including:
- •Strengthen and sustainably fund EU and national policies and services;
- •Develop coordinated systems to protect, support, and ensure the safety of children involved in organised crime, including victim support, schools, digital platforms, healthcare, child protection services and justice systems;
- •Ensure limitation periods for child abuse reflect trauma and delayed disclosure by extending, suspending or abolishing them for the most serious offences;
- •Strengthen training to identify signs of grooming, coercion, trauma and distress for all stakeholders involved with children;
- •Support families and caregivers without blame, providing key resources to best enable them with the victim process, while providing children with safe routes to help outside the home when it’s unsafe;
- •Make victim support services available regardless of reporting, utilising gender-sensitive, trauma-informed and victim-centred care;
- •Provide age-appropriate, trauma-informed and safe victim-centred justice, avoiding secondary victimisation; and
- •Ensure safety by design on online platforms and their collaboration with authorities.
So, is protecting children from organised crime possible? Yes, but not if we wait until exploitation occurs. It requires a shift from reacting to offences to recognising risk earlier and reducing threats; from seeing only the crime to seeing the child behind it; and from temporary fixes to a permanent protection framework that matches the speed and scale of organised exploitation.
Every child has the right to safety, dignity and a future free from exploitation. The question is not whether we have the knowledge to protect them, but whether we will act before harm becomes irreversible. Children cannot wait for systems to catch up. Children deserve to grow up safe, heard, and protected.
