New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) provides insight into children’s experiences of safety, violence and harmful online content in England and Wales. The findings are based on responses from 6,031 children aged 10–15 through the redesigned Children’s Crime Survey for England and Wales. Key findings include:

• 12% of 13- to 15-year-olds received at least one sexual message in the previous 12 months. Of those, 25% received more than 10, 19% received messages from an adult aged 18 or over, and 68% said the messages were unwanted.
• Exposure to harmful online content was widespread: 48% of 13- to 15-year-olds had seen a lot or a fair amount of hateful content, while 19% had seen content encouraging eating disorders, 15% sexual content and 12% content showing or encouraging self-harm.
• 69% of children aged 10–15 had seen or heard about physical violence between their peers, while 25% thought people were likely to carry weapons in their local area and 15% were worried about weapon carrying.

More than a third (37%) had seen violent or criminal content online, most commonly fights or other physical violence. Among children worried about gangs or weapons locally, around a third avoided certain places, travelling alone or going out at particular times.