How to prevent paedophiles using children as a way of getting access to sex, according to a report from the National Crime Agency.
The report, titled Protecting Children from Pedophiles: A Vision for an Industry of the Future, has been compiled by the agency and will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Professional Psychology in London next month.
It is part of a wider package of research into paedophilic child abuse.
The NCA said the UK has the highest rate of child sexual abuse in the world.
There are currently 4,200 children in care, of whom 5,000 are in care for paedophiliac or violent offences.
The majority of those in care are men, but the report said women are more likely to be sexually abused than men.
“The vast majority of perpetrators of child abuse are men and boys,” the NCA’s chief executive, Caroline Smith, said.
“We need to do everything we can to prevent child sexual exploitation from taking place in the first place.”
In the past decade, there has been a huge shift in the way that paedophile networks operate.
There were just 2,500 reports of child sex abuse in 2010, compared to more than 20,000 in 2009.
In 2014, there were just six reports of sexual abuse reported to the police.
The agency is currently investigating a string of child grooming incidents, which it says “have increased significantly in recent years”.
There have also been numerous incidents of children being raped by older men in a bid to “make money”.
The NCS report said “children as young as five” are being groomed and raped in some of the most remote communities in the country.
It said “most paedophilates are in contact with children and are grooming them for sexual purposes”.
“These networks are run by older adults who have the advantage of older children and a younger younger target audience, which is increasingly young men,” the report says.
The investigation was led by NCA crime and law enforcement officers and the report is a further example of the agency’s work to tackle child sexual offences in the UK.
“We recognise the need for the UK to act and to act now,” Ms Smith said.
“It’s a challenge for all of us in the law enforcement community to put our heads together, and to work together in order to ensure the police and child protection services can work with the community and the community’s partners.”
It is estimated there are at least 40,000 child sexual abusers in the US alone.