Tuesday 10 February
[Geneva, Thursday 9th July 2026] – Safe Online today announced 30 grantees from its latest targeted funding round, investing $8 million in AI-driven solutions to address the growing and increasingly complex threat of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA).
Over the past decade, Safe Online has invested more than US$100 million in efforts to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse, supporting more than 180 projects across more than 100 countries. The organisations selected in this funding round are developing innovative approaches to some of the most urgent child protection challenges emerging in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
“The crisis of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse passed a breaking point some time ago,” said Marija Manojlovic, Executive Director of Safe Online.
“The volume, speed, and new forms of harm have now outgrown human scale. I’m convinced progress comes from acting upstream – understanding how these harms connect and what systems drive them, and harnessing AI and technology to strengthen prevention, response, and the systems built to carry that work forward. This funding round does that.”
As generative AI and other emerging technologies reshape digital environments, they are also creating new opportunities for harm. AI-generated child sexual abuse material is proliferating and being used to further exploit children. Online grooming is becoming faster, more targeted, and increasingly sophisticated.
The funding announced today demonstrates the breadth of innovation needed to respond to a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Among the first grantees are organisations tackling some of the most pressing challenges facing children online.
The Digital Futures for Children Centre at the London School of Economics will work with children across six countries to uncover hidden risks in generative AI systems and help shape safer digital products. Qhala Trust in Kenya is developing one of Africa’s first child-centred benchmarks for evaluating AI safety, ensuring emerging technologies are tested against the real experiences, languages, and needs of children.
Other grantees are harnessing technology to strengthen child protection systems. INHOPE’s Project SOAR will expand the global infrastructure that enables hotlines, industry, and law enforcement agencies to share data and respond more effectively to online child sexual abuse. Kindred Tech will scale AI-powered tools that help investigators identify victims and accelerate child exploitation investigations.
Several projects focus on prevention and survivor leadership. Together for Girls will establish a Safe Tech Survivor Council, ensuring people with lived experience help shape technology policy and product design from the outset. In the Philippines, Masayang Pamilya will equip parents with practical online safety and positive parenting skills to help protect children from online exploitation and abuse, while the Lucy Faithfull Foundation will generate new evidence on how early interventions can prevent offending and stop abuse before it occurs.
Together, these projects, and many others, reflect Safe Online’s commitment to investing in solutions that are innovative, evidence-based, and capable of keeping pace with rapidly evolving technologies.
This cohort of 30 grantees represents a diverse group of organisations working across regions and sectors to tackle technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. Together, they bring expertise in research, technology development, survivor engagement, prevention, advocacy, and systems strengthening..
Safe Online is the world’s largest global fund dedicated to ending online child sexual exploitation and abuse. By investing in evidence, innovation, and collaboration, Safe Online supports governments, civil society organisations, researchers, technology companies, and survivors to build safer digital environments for children everywhere.
Farwa Shah, Strategic Communications and Media Relations Executive
farwa@strategicagenda.com,
Our grantees UNICEF Ethiopia Strengthening Child Protection in Ethiopia to prevent and respond to violence against children, including online child sexual abuse and exploitation Countries involved:October 2017 – October 2019 UNICEF Ethiopia’s project will focus on strengthening child protection systems, including social welfare and justice systems, to prevent and respond to
Our grantees Middlesex University Invisible Risks: Combating Secondary Trauma to Safeguard Children Countries involved:United Kindgom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland We know that online child sexual abuse material is highly damaging to children. But today, little primary research exists about the impact such material has on content moderators –
Our grantees UNICEF Albania Safer and Better Internet for Children and Youth in Albania Countries involved:Albania UNICEF Albania is using support from the Fund to end violence against children online on multiple levels. To reach children, the agency is training children to become peer educators on online violence, increasing their knowledge
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We are here to ensure every child and young person grows in to the digital world feeling safe, and is protected from harm.
We support, champion, and invest in innovative partners from the public, private, and third sectors working towards the same objective.
We believe in equipping guardians and young people with the skills to understand and see danger themselves once accessing digital experiences without supervision.
