The reason why they're being reported on is that it gets the papers clickthroughs and increased advertising revenue. It's a particularly unpleasant equivalent of Meghan Markle stories, miracle diets and salacious murders - the last of which have been making newspaper owners obscenely rich for a good couple of centuries.
The actual level of abuse is likely to be less than it ever has been in history. It would be great if the level were zero, but when there are humans involved, that's never going to happen - there will always be people with mental illnesses, people with personality disorders, people who are irrevocably damaged by their own childhoods, drug abuse or are just plain wicked. And weaker people will always suffer at their hands. It's not right, but it is, for want of a better word, Normal for humans.
Now yes, salacious stories also have the advantage of getting laws put in place in order to keep particular politicians in power, so there are more laws as a result of publishing those accounts of how much defenceless children have suffered and how nobody helped them or somebody tried but wasn't listened to - but you're being upset by it because the news organisations know it makes them money, so you hear of more than you would have done.
Some people act on this by being more vigilant in their daily lives and reporting things they feel are wrong, some find meaning in religion, some almost completely reject the human race can't say I blame them. But it isn't worse than ever. It really, really isn't; 1.5 million innocent children were murdered in just four years in Europe in the period from 1941-45 for the crime of existing - Jewish, Roma, Polish, Catholic, Disabled. 1,500,000 innocent babies, toddlers, infants, juniors, pre teens and teenagers. Nothing now can be as awful as that.
It's not getting worse. It's awful and everything possible should be done to try and protect the children. but it isn't getting worse.