Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team officers call for help from parents as reports of online predators rise
Senior police say these rising numbers show the constant threat of people stalking and exploiting our most vulnerable on the internet. They are urging parents to warn their children of the increasingly tech-savvy offenders.
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The number of online sexual predators investigated by specialist police based in Adelaide has more than doubled in the past year.
And officers are calling for help from families, with Research by the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation showing only half of parents talk about online safety with their kids.
The concerning statistic has prompted pleas from the officers who encounter horrific child abuse on a daily basis for open and honest dialogue about the risks of online predators. In the 2019-20 financial year, members of the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Taskforce (JACET), a combined effort of state and federal police, launched 129 investigations compared to 55 the year before.
As a result of the investigations, the team made 89 arrests, compared to 40 the year before, and saved 52 children in Australia and around the world from abuse or dangerous situations. A number of matters are before the courts.
AFP JACET team leader Sergeant Jonathon Coats said the number of referrals coming into the unit from international law enforcement had spiked in recent years.
“A job on the face of it might be a standard referral and it might look ordinary, but you don’t know until you’re going through the door and you see what it is you are dealing with,” he said.
“So many matters we see here appear like one arrest and then, once we analyse the case, we find a network. It can turn into multiple offenders in America or Europe and potentially the grooming of children interstate, and the amount of work just starts to multiply.”
Sergeant Coats said the COVID-19 pandemic had caused a significant change in the way that not only children and teenagers use the internet, but predators as well.
“Kids are becoming more digitally integrated at school, which has been accelerated because of COVID,” he said.
“We have seen an increase in younger kids being online and a greater need to educate.
“One thing we are mindful of is that online engagement time used to be straight after school and after dinner during homework time, now it is all the time.
“An online child-sex offender working from home is not restricted by work hours. You can work from home as well as conduct nefarious business from home throughout the day and night, instead of having to work 9-5 and leave your offending to the week hours.”
Nationwide, the number of referrals to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation has more than doubled since the outbreak of COVID-19 in April. Sergeant Coats said it was crucial for parents to have honest and frequent talks with their children about online risks.
“It’s about having the ability to have conversations about their activity, and trust they can come to you with any issues,” he said.
“It is a tough balance because you don’t want to scare parents.”
However, he said parents needed to understand how easy it was for offenders to target children.
“You wouldn’t open a curtain if you knew there was someone out there hiding behind a bush. And in some ways that’s what this is – they are already there.”
“When we are talking about child-sex offenders, that is their life. They are not motivated by money, it is their life, it is their reason for being and getting up in the morning.”
Officer in charge of the Public Protection Branch Detective Superintendent Mark Wieszyk said JACET’s goal was to rescue as many children from harm as possible.
Child abuse can be reported on the ACCCE AFPwebsiteand more resources can be found at thinkuknow.org.au