In 2025, the national police agency (NPA) released figures on the number of elementary school children in Japan who became victims of sex crimes and other offences due to social media, the number of which had reached 167, the highest level in 10 years since data on the subject is available.
The number increased by an average of 20 per cent compared to the previous year.
Since it is estimated that the age of victims is on the decline, the agency will track the posts on social media and send warnings about the lure messages.
The number of victims below 18 years, according to the NPA, rose by 5.4% to 1,566. The number of elementary school students increased by 31. Boys constituted seven of the victims in the elementary schools.
In comparison to the 2016 level, the high school student population decreased by approximately 40 per cent, and that of elementary school students grew by approximately four times.
The highest number of victims was the age group of 11 years, which had 71 cases, and the age group of 12 years had 57 cases.
According to the agency, “the number of children who own smartphones begins at approximately the age of 10, and their familiarity with their use could have reduced their awareness of the dangers that could be involved.”
There were 55 nonconsent indecent acts, 45 child pornography and 24 nonconsent sexual acts among others.
Instagram, TikTok and Line occupied approximately half of the total, 85 cases. Zepeto and Parallel also recorded 14 and 12 cases, respectively, indicating a preference towards diversification of contact tools. Through online games, the incidences were high at 22.
Filtering was only activated on approximately 10% of the victims below the age of 18 to restrict access to naughty sites.
Over half were befriended via posts that had nothing to do with crime, including posts about hobbies, and NPA officials urged parents and other guardians “to talk with their children about what sites they visit and who they consider a friend and have filtering turned on.”
In the meantime, the Children and Families Agency has established a working group to deliberate on the potential regulation of social media services to ensure that juveniles are not drawn into problems through the internet.
The group will deliberate on measures whilst considering an amendment to the law in order to enhance the use of the internet by the youths safely and securely, a law that will limit individuals’ access to information that is harmful to them.
The team, which is supposed to publish an interim report in July, will get a chance to consult junior and senior high school students on their views.
According to the law, information that promotes crime or suicide by juveniles, information that contains obscene images or sadistic material, falls under the definition of information harmful to juveniles.
The legislation aims to protect minors who are below 18 years of age against this kind of information by mostly using filtering processes.
However, on numerous occasions, the juveniles have been caught in the trap of the bait of illicit work, sex crimes and consumer ills through their use of social media, video streaming services, online games and apps. The risks have been on the rise, which cannot be handled through access restrictions.
In some nations, measures have been taken to increase countermeasures. Australia has already implemented a bill to limit the use of social media by minors who are below 16 years old.
The working group will debate the issue of tightening regulations, how to check the age of the user in case of tightening of regulations and how to guarantee the success of actions.
It will conduct hearings with the representatives of related government agencies, content creators and psychiatrists and will conduct meetings with junior and senior high school students during spring and summer. The youth will be questioned on the current usage of social media and generative artificial intelligence tools, along with their perceptions on whether regulations should be tighter.
