## 3 Initial Results
#### 3.1.2 A Narrative Conceptual Exploration
The harms of sextortion involve dignity, well-being, safety, and individual impact, touching on privacy, security, and societal consequences. It affects, at the global level, all social strata, although some may be more vulnerable than others. Statistics on the topic is often missing, however, recent statistics from jurisdictions that collect data on the topic, such as those from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) [37], indicate \"more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors [with] at least 12,600 victims and led to at least 20 suicides\" between October 2021 and March 2023. The victims are minors, typically \"men between the ages of 14 to 17\"; however, the issue is affecting all genders. In a study in 2024 [37], the authors highlight that of close to 17,000 respondents, \"14.5% reported victimization and 4.8% reported perpetration\", with men, LGBTQ+, and young victims more likely to report victimization than other categories. The same study affirms that \"experiencing threats to distribute intimate content is a relatively common event, affecting 1 in 7 adults\". A report by the Korean Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center [2] mentions 10,305 confirmed cases of digital sex crimes, with \"teenagers and people in their 20s [accounting] for 78.7 percent of reported victims\" with \"1384 cases involving image manipulation using AI and advanced technology. This marks a sharp increase from the 423 cases reported in 2023--more than triple the previous year's figure\". The landscape is dire and becoming riskier by the day. To add to the risks, this digital threat breeds in fertile environments for manipulation, grooming, and blackmail, such as social media, messaging, and virtual reality platforms [38; 39]. These, hence, exacerbate this form of abuse with a significant emotional toll on its victims [40]. Although in most countries, sextortion is often not legally defined as a crime, authorities prosecute related crimes in varying ways between jurisdictions, categorizing it as child pornography, harassment, extortion, stalking, hacking, and violations of personal privacy [24]. For instance, in the USA, sextortion is defined in two primary ways: as a threat to share a victim's private sexual images to extort something from them or as coercion to make the victim send sexual material under threats. Federal law typically prosecutes sextortion as extortion or child pornography, depending on the victim's age [35]. The member states of the European Union also prosecute sextortion in a variety of ways according to domestic legislation, often through extortion, privacy violation, and sexual harassment charges that account for individual and broad social impacts, from defamation and integrity infringements to media manipulation and gender inequalities [41]. For example, in France, illicit coercion of sexual favors faces civil and criminal charges such as sexual assault, extortion, blackmail, or corruption [41]. In addition to this, the Digital Republic Law covers issues related to the unauthorized use of personal data, including non-consensual sexual imagery and deepfakes [42]. Similarly, data protection laws are used to protect against sextortion in Germany, Spain, and Hungary, with legislation in the latter specifically including provisions for sexual exploitation, defined as coercing someone into sexual activities through threats, and, since 2013, sexual blackmail and extortion [41]. While the USA's prosecution approach through existing extortion laws provides flexibility, it fails to address the specific psychological harms of sextortion that specialized legislation like Germany's might better target. This legal fragmentation creates significant challenges for cross-border enforcement and technology-based solutions. Digital technologies play a role in enabling sextortion by providing environments for sexual exploitation. Hence, it is necessary to understand these digital technologies, the roles they play in sexual exploitation, and the impacts on the victims.