Internet has given us the luxury to connect and explore the world just by sitting at our homes. Today, from children to elderly ones everyone is on the internet for some or the other purpose. As we know everything is available on the internet so different age groups have different purposes to use it. Small children use it to play online games, elderly people use it for religious and spiritual purposes, adults use it for their work purposes. Similarly, teenagers mostly use it for social media. Almost each one of us is on the social media platforms and we all in so many ways enjoy being on it. But do we know the pressure and the and the feeling of competition it creates on the children especially on the teenagers and everytime due to this competition and in the race of fanning more followers and likes, children tend to put anything on these platforms which leads to their exploitation. Although, the exploitation children is not a new phenomenon, this digital age and excess usage of social media has exacerbated the problem and created more vulnerability to children. We all have heard the term “child abuse” but do we know 33% of child abuse is happening online worldwide. The internet has become a huge platform of child abuse. This online child abuse is also known as “cyber molestation” due to its virtual, distanced and anonymous nature. Such abuse does not happen face to face nor it necessarily requires physical contact. However, it leaves a huge mental trauma on minds of the children. Children and youth can be abused over the internet in many ways such as Internet- initiated grooming for the purpose of sexual abuse, the possession production and distribution of internet based abuse images of children and the internet initiated incitement or conspiracy to commit sexual abuse of children through activity such as sex tourism and prostitution. By doing this the individual abrogates child's human rights to dignity, equality, autonomy and physical and mental wellbeing.

                                Although the term “victimization” is used frequently, many of the negative experiences of children and youth over the internet do not rise to the level of criminal incidents. Some of the molestations are do not necessarily criminal but they can be emotionally distressing and can cause lifetime trauma to the children. As mentioned above, online sexual solicitation includes request by individual to a child or a youth to engage in sexual activity or sex talks or to give personal sexual information. Online solicitation can be aimed to produce self generated child sexual abuse material or to engage children and youth in sexual chats or other online abusive activity such as cybersex or to lure the child to arrange offline meeting for sexual purposes. Also another purpose can be online sex tourism, trafficking and prostitution involving children. Exploitation of children can also take place through illicit activities that are initiated through the internet. They can become an object of commercial transaction via web site that sell them online either for sexual abuse offline for live sexual abuse online. These websites are also used to advertise products and illicit services such as prostitution, escort services provided by minors. Likewise, they often offer information about places of countries and which laws protecting against exploitation of children may be lax or not enforced. Now the question arises how can we protect our children from these activities going on the internet. The only way would be awareness among the children on what to put on the social media what not to put. Similarly, which websites to refer upon and which websites not to. Checking a bit into what they are surfacing on the internet would help parents a lot in protecting their children from exploitation and abuse.

                     The problem of online sexual exploitation has emerged as a new field of enquiry on how the internet influences the life of children. The good news is that this problem is at its early stage and we can easily overcome it by spreading awareness amongst children. While there have been some initiative to protect children and youth from certain potential perils of internet use, the issue of online sexual exploitation has not entered the mainstream of research conducted in the field of child abuse and neglect. Rather, child and youth safety over the internet has seen as the matter which largely needs to be addressed by parents and children and give them self guided by advice from Government and other organisations. Government agencies and the new technology industry should be aware of the existence of this problem they should have a proper knowledge of its characteristics and consequences and should understand the policy and practice challenge to which they give rise. Right now in today's scenario the only thing we can do to protect our children is spreading awareness. Awareness is the only key of protection for the children. So, Be aware! Be protected!