About 1% of the male population has a sexual interest in children. Most of these people will never act on that interest, but some of them do go on to commit offences.

There is a range of jargon, and that makes searching for information a bit trickier.

OCSE = online child sexual exploitation. CSEA = Child sexual exploitation and abuse. CSAM = child sexual abuse material.

Here are some UK stats:

> Law enforcement agencies in the UK are currently arresting around 450 individuals and safeguarding over 600 children each month through their efforts to combat online CSE.

> In the UK alone, it is estimated there are 80,000 people who present a sexual threat to children online.

> Statistics from the National Crime Agency (NCA) show that last year 2.88 million accounts were registered globally across the most harmful child sexual abuse dark web sites, with at least 5% believed to be registered in the UK.

These are good reports, although they're obviously written from a child protection viewpoint.

http://www2.paconsulting.com/rs/526-HZE-833/images/WePROTECT...

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/25/fact-sheet-on...

https://www.iwf.org.uk/report/iwf-2019-annual-report-zero-to...

>> Nevertheless, if it is true that 95% of perpetrators are well known to the victim, that doesn't sound like this abuse is happening online

But that abuse often gets put online, or is traded to access other images.

How do we know 1% of the male population has such an interest?

How do we know it is often put online? Surely, it's incredibly stupid to upload evidence of yourself committing a crime? How much is happening behind closed doors that does not? Can we even tell?

> Anecdotally, I have always felt like CSA is a fairly niche issue that is blown way out of proportion, but I don't know how/haven't bothered to confirm or deny this belief.

I mean, you could say the same thing of school/mass shootings. it's terrible when they happen, but they make up a pretty small fraction of total homicides.