ECPAT International, ECPAT Taiwan and National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan are cooperating on a project to enhance global ethical practice in research on sexual exploitation involving children. As a first step, this paper identifies the critical ethical considerations for research on this highly sensitive topic that have been named in the relevant formal and informal literature. The paper also makes suggestions for some potential approaches. This paper is a precursor to Guidelines for Conducting Ethical Research on Sexual Exploitation involving Children that are being developed by a global working group of ECPAT member organisations during 2019.