The sexual exploitation of children is a profoundly damaging human rights violation that has serious, immediate and long-term physical, mental, emotional and social health consequences for the victims. Yet according to Beckett and Pearce (2018) there is ‘a continuing societal discomfort around accepting that the sexual exploitation of children can affect any child and, as such is a problem that affects all of us’. This scoping study seeks to confront this discomfort by gleaning insights into the issue of the sexual exploitation of children and young people in Ireland.