LONDON: Europe overtook North America last year as the world’s biggest host of websites containing child sexual abuse images, according to a study by a British internet watchdog group published on Monday.

Europe as a whole, including Russia and Turkey, accounted for 60 percent of such sites, a 19 percentage point increase from 2015, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation’s annual report said. North America hosted 37 percent of the world’s child pornography websites, down from 57 percent in 2015. The study found the highest number — 20,972, or 37 percent of the total — were in the Netherlands, followed by the United States with 12,492 (22 percent), Canada with 8,803 (15 percent), France with 6,099 (11 percent) and Russia with 4,176 (7 percent).—AFP