Over 300 million children a year face sexual abuse online, study

A Filipino police investigator takes a picture of the computer of a suspected child exploitation operation. [AP Photo]

More than 300 million children a year are victims of online sexual exploitation and abuse, according to the first global estimate of the scale of the problem published on Monday.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that one in eight of the world's children have been victims of non-consensual taking, sharing and exposure to sexual images and video in the past 12 months.