The danger of artificial intelligence is no longer limited to science fiction, job disruption, or debates about the future. For many women and children, the danger has already arrived in the most intimate and violating way possible with their faces, bodies, names, and identities being used to create sexual images they never consented to and, in some cases, images that are entirely fabricated but devastatingly real in their consequences.
The technology is often called “deepfake” abuse, AI-generated sexual abuse, or nonconsensual intimate imagery. But those phrases can sound too technical for what is actually happening. In plain terms, people are using AI tools to turn ordinary photos into sexualized images, create fake nude pictures, generate explicit videos, impersonate victims, threaten them, shame them, and, in the case of children, produce material that classifies as child sexual abuse material.
This is not a future risk. It is a present crisis.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says generative AI is being used in multiple forms of child exploitation, including the creation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, sextortion, and the revictimization of known child abuse survivors whose images are manipulated into new abusive content. NCMEC reported that it began tracking generative-AI-related CyberTipline reports in January 2023 and saw those reports rise from 4,700 in 2023 to 67,000 in 2024 and 1.5 million in 2025, though it noted that a large portion of the 2025 total came from one provider and contained no actionable information.
The Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based child-protection organization that works to identify and remove child sexual abuse material online, warned in January that AI tools are contributing to record levels of online child sexual abuse imagery. IWF said its analysts found 3,440 AI videos of child sexual abuse in 2025, compared with only 13 in 2024—a rise of more than 26,000 percent.
Those numbers are difficult to absorb. Because behind every report is a person, a child, a family, a body, a reputation, and a life that may be permanently altered by something that took seconds to create and can spread across the internet in minutes.
What AI Sexual Exploitation Looks Like
AI sexual exploitation can take several forms.
One form is the creation of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, where someone uses AI to place a real person’s face or likeness onto sexualized images or videos. This has overwhelmingly affected women and girls. UN Women describes AI-powered online abuse as a growing form of violence against women, noting that deepfake pornography and other forms of image-based abuse are being used to humiliate, threaten, and control victims.
Another form is “nudification,” where AI tools are used to alter a clothed image and fabricate a nude or sexualized version of the person. UNICEF has warned that sexualized images of children generated or manipulated by AI are child sexual abuse material and that “deepfake abuse is abuse,” even when the image itself is fabricated.
A third form is sextortion. The FBI warns that sextortion schemes against minors have increased in recent years and can begin when a child believes they are communicating with someone their own age or someone offering affection, attention, or something of value. Once an exploiter obtains or fabricates compromising material, they may threaten to publish it unless the victim sends more images, performs sexual acts, or pays money.
A fourth form is revictimization. Known victims of child sexual abuse can have existing abuse material altered, expanded, or manipulated by AI, creating new abusive images from old trauma. NCMEC says this is one of the ways generative AI is being used to harm children. When a child’s identity is used in sexualized content, UNICEF says that child is directly victimized.
This matters because some people still dismiss AI-generated sexual images as “fake.” But the harm, shame, fear, bullying, and reputational harm is not fake. Not to mention the trauma this creates which has lasting effects.
Why Women and Girls Are Especially Vulnerable
AI sexual exploitation is deeply gendered. Women and girls are disproportionately targeted by sexual deepfake abuse, harassment, and nonconsensual intimate imagery. This is not simply a technology issue; it is a digital extension of sexual violence, misogyny, coercion, and control.
For adult women, the harm may appear in the workplace, school, church, community, family, or public life. A woman does not have to share intimate images for her body to be weaponized against her. A profile picture, a school photo, a social media post, or an image taken from a public website may be enough for someone to fabricate sexual content.
For girls, the danger is even more severe. Thorn, a child-safety organization, surveyed 1,200 young people ages 13 to 20 and found that deepfake nudes are already a real experience young people are navigating. Thorn also cited earlier youth-monitoring research in which 11 percent of minors ages 9 to 17 said they believed friends or classmates had used AI tools to generate nude images of other children.
That means this is not only happening in dark corners of the internet. It is entering schools, group chats, gaming communities, social media platforms, and peer circles. It can be done by strangers, but also by classmates, acquaintances, former friends, dating partners, or people with direct access to a child.
The cruelty is often intensified by familiarity. A stranger can exploit a victim. But when the perpetrator is a peer, classmate, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, coworker, or someone inside the victim’s own community, the violation can feel inescapable.
Why Children Are at Particular Risk
Children face a unique kind of danger because they often do not understand how quickly images can be copied, manipulated, and spread. Many young people live much of their social lives through phones, apps, games, messages, and image-sharing platforms. That creates many points of contact for grooming, coercion, deception, and exploitation.
The FBI warns that sextortion can happen on any site, app, messaging platform, or game where people communicate. It also emphasizes that victims are not the ones in trouble and should seek help from an adult, law enforcement, or NCMEC’s CyberTipline.
One reason AI has made this crisis worse is that exploiters no longer always need an actual intimate image. They may be able to create a convincing fake and use it as a weapon. That changes the nature of the threat. A child can be exploited even if they never took or sent an explicit image.
That is why parents and caregivers must stop thinking of online sexual exploitation only in terms of what a child “chooses” to send. AI means an innocent photo can become the raw material for abuse. A school picture, sports photo, dance recital image, swimsuit picture, or ordinary selfie can be manipulated by someone with bad intentions.
This should not lead parents into panic, shame, or surveillance-heavy control of children. But it should lead to sober conversations. Children need to know that if someone threatens them with a real or fake image, they should not comply, should not pay, should not send more material, and should immediately tell a trusted adult. The first response must be protection, not punishment.
The Law Is Trying to Catch Up
Governments have begun responding, but the law is still catching up to the technology.
In the United States, President Donald Trump signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act into law in May 2025. The law targets nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated deepfakes, and requires covered platforms to remove reported content within a set timeframe after notification by a victim or their representative.
The law has been praised by many victim advocates as a major step forward. At the same time, some civil-liberties and internet-policy experts have raised concerns about overreach, censorship risks, and how platforms will verify claims quickly. Those concerns deserve attention. But they do not erase the urgent need for legal tools that help victims remove abusive images and hold perpetrators accountable.
Other countries are moving as well. UNICEF has called for governments to expand definitions of child sexual abuse material to include AI-generated content and to criminalize its creation, possession, procurement, and distribution. It has also urged AI developers and digital companies to build stronger safeguards and prevent the circulation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material rather than merely removing it after harm has occurred.
This is an important distinction. Removal after the fact matters, but prevention matters more. Once an image spreads online, the victim may never know where it has gone, who has seen it, or when it might reappear. The internet does not forget easily.
Why This Is a Spiritual and Moral Issue
For Christians, this crisis cannot be reduced to “online safety.” It is a matter of human dignity.
Every person is made in the image of God. That means the body is not a toy, a product, a joke, a threat, or a tool of revenge. The body is part of the person. To sexually exploit someone’s image is not merely to misuse technology. It is to violate a person’s dignity.
Scripture repeatedly condemns sexual exploitation, predation, and the abuse of the vulnerable. Jesus’ warning about causing “little ones” to stumble should weigh heavily on any society that allows children to be targeted, humiliated, sexualized, or coerced through technology. And Proverbs’ call to protect those who cannot protect themselves should challenge churches to become safer, more informed, and more responsive.
This is also a discipleship issue. Many people are being formed by a digital culture that treats bodies as consumable, women as objects, children as targets, and sexuality as detached from covenant, holiness, tenderness, and responsibility. AI did not create lust, predation, misogyny, or exploitation. But it has given old sins new speed, new scale, and new tools.
That is why the church cannot afford to be naïve. We cannot simply tell young people to “be careful online”. We need honest teaching about the body, sexuality, image-bearing, pornography, consent, secrecy, shame, and courage. We need to teach children and teenagers that they are never beyond help, never too ashamed to speak, and never responsible for someone else’s exploitation of them.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents should know that AI sexual exploitation can happen without a child ever sending an explicit image. They should talk with children about how ordinary photos can be misused, but they should do so without terrifying them or making them feel responsible for the evil actions of others.
Parents should also keep communication open enough that a child feels safe coming forward. The FBI notes that shame, fear, and confusion often keep children trapped in sextortion cycles. Exploiters depend on the victim believing they will be punished, blamed, or rejected if they tell someone.
A child who comes forward should hear immediately: “You are not in trouble. I am glad you told me. We are going to get help.”
Parents should document threats, avoid engaging with the exploiter, report the abuse to the platform, contact law enforcement where appropriate, and make a report to NCMEC’s CyberTipline. They can also use NCMEC’s Take It Down tool, which helps minors and adults who were minors when the images were taken seek removal of explicit images from participating platforms. The FBI specifically points families to NCMEC and the Take It Down program as resources for victims.
What Churches Need to Know
Churches need to understand that this issue is already affecting families in their pews.
A teenage girl in a youth group may be terrified that a fake image is circulating at school. A mother may be silently dealing with a daughter being threatened online. A woman in ministry or public life may be afraid that someone could weaponize her image. A boy may be trapped in financial sextortion and too ashamed to tell his parents. A family may be trying to remove content while also managing panic, humiliation, and fear.
Churches should not wait until a crisis arrives to build a response. Pastors, youth leaders, children’s ministry teams, and parents need basic awareness of AI-generated sexual abuse and sextortion. Churches should have clear child-protection policies, digital communication boundaries, reporting procedures, and relationships with trusted counseling and law-enforcement resources.
The worst response a church can give is disbelief, minimization, or moral panic that blames the victim.
The better response is truth and protection: this is abuse; you are not alone; we will help you; we will report what needs to be reported; we will not shame you; we will walk with you.
What Technology Companies Must Do
AI companies and platforms cannot hide behind the idea that tools are neutral and its the perpetrators at fault. When a product can be easily used to create sexualized images of real people or children, the company has a responsibility to prevent abuse by design.
UNICEF has called on AI developers to implement safety-by-design approaches and robust guardrails, and on digital companies to prevent circulation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material rather than merely removing it after harm is reported.
That means companies should be expected to block abusive prompts and outputs, prevent image manipulation tools from sexualizing real people, detect and stop known abuse patterns, cooperate with child-safety organizations, report illegal content, preserve evidence appropriately, and respond quickly to victims.
It also means app stores, search engines, hosting companies, payment processors, and social platforms must stop treating this as someone else’s problem. The ecosystem that profits from digital scale must also bear responsibility for digital harm.
And that responsibility cannot stop with technology companies. This is not only a parent problem. It is a platform problem, a school problem, a legal problem, a church problem, and a cultural problem. The Christian response cannot be fear or silence. It must be vigilance joined with courage: protecting the vulnerable, telling the truth, refusing to normalize exploitation, holding perpetrators accountable, and demanding more from the companies building these tools.
Women and children are not raw material for someone else’s fantasy, profit, revenge, or power. They are image-bearers. Their dignity is not negotiable, and their protection is not optional. And any technology that makes exploitation easier must be confronted with law, accountability, and the fierce love of God for the vulnerable.
Where to Report Abuse or Get Help
If a child is being sexually exploited online, or if you suspect child sexual abuse material has been created, shared, or threatened, report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline at CyberTipline.org. NCMEC’s 24-hour call center is also available at 1-800-THE-LOST / 1-800-843-5678.
Victims can also use NCMEC’s Take It Down tool at TakeItDown.NCMEC.org to help remove or stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos taken before they were 18. NCMEC says the tool can be used anonymously and does not require users to send the image or video to anyone.
For immediate danger or an emergency, call 911.
