A/HRC/25/48 influences their sexual practices and affects their behaviour. Prevailing standards and peer pressure has led adolescents to share sexualized images of themselves, making them vulnerable to abuse and potentially redefining some of the social limits of acceptability of child pornography. 7. Increasing global demand 50. The demand for sex with children is persistent and growing, underpinned by an environment of social tolerance, complicity and impunity. Despite popular misconceptions, the demand for sex with children does not only come from paedophiles. It stems from overall demand for sex and typically happens as “opportunities” arise in that context. Perpetrators of child sexual exploitation are of all ages, may be male or female and can be from very different socioeconomic backgrounds and professions. 51. Moreover, child sexual exploitation is a very lucrative industry, allegedly a source of billions of dollars of profit. Global spread of the Internet34 8. 52. The growth of the Internet and the ongoing development of evolving technologies over the past decade, across the world, is a major phenomenon that has significantly affected the global context of the sale and sexual exploitation of children and will continue to do so in coming years. In 2004, 14 per cent of the world’s population was using the Internet, with 7 per cent in the developing world.35 In 2012, almost 39 per cent of the world’s population was online, and 31 per cent of the population in the developing world.36 53. The Internet brings tremendous positive opportunities, in particular for children and young people. Although the Internet may not represent a determinant per se of the sale and sexual exploitation of children, it does nonetheless operate as an instrument for offenders, multiplying the possibilities of obtaining, distributing and selling child abuse material and facilitating access to children in all parts of the world, and consequently promoting the growth of this phenomenon. 9. Globalization and financial transactions 54. While some aspects of globalization can bring advantages, the increased integration of a country into the global economy can also facilitate transnational organized crime. The International Monetary Fund has underlined the fact that global financial flows have continued to increase since 2000, making countries increasingly integrated.37 Transnational criminal networks use the tools offered by globalization for registration and financial transactions, to develop lucrative activities involving the sex industry and thus creating new risks for the sexual exploitation of children. As global integration continues to grow and new payment tools develop, the use by criminals of the possibilities globalization offers, including for the sale and sexual exploitation of children, will remain a central preoccupation. 55. To sum up, since 2008 major changes have occurred in the nature, extent, and root causes of the sale and sexual exploitation of children. Although progress has been made in some areas, the result has been an overall preoccupying growth in the phenomenon, as 34 35 36 37 12 See the report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography on preventing and combating child pornography on the Internet (A/HRC/12/23). United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006. United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2013. See www.imf.org/external/about/histglob.htm.