Stopping online child exploitation will be almost impossible for law enforcement without international tech companies getting on board with reforms, says Australia's eSafety Commissioner.
A new report calls for a global approach as Commissioner Julie Inman Grant warns that authorities saw a record increase in material since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The report, released by Unicef and advocacy group the WeProtect Global Alliance, compared the laws and government actions of 42 countries in combating online child sexual abuse.
It found that participating countries performed best on measures of criminal justice, governance and policy in relation to addressing online child sexual abuse. Meanwhile, there were notable gaps in victim support, education, and corporate responsibility across the nations responding to the survey.
Ms Inman Grant has responded to the report's findings by calling for greater global cooperation to stop online child sexual abuse.
"[Child abuse material] is a global scourge, the internet is global of course, our laws are largely national or local," she said.
"Almost all of the regulatory targets we're working with, whether they're websites, image boards, big tech companies, they're all domiciled overseas.
"When we're looking at images of children, who are being tortured and abused, our responsibility isn't only to the Australian children that are being abused."
Ms Inman Grant said authorities also had a duty to prevent abuse of children overseas.
The Commissioner said the majority of child sexual abuse material was domiciled in developing countries. However, due to a permissive hosting environment, much of the abuse and terrorist content originated from the United States, Netherlands, France, Russia, Ukraine and the Caribbean.
"We will continue to have a focus on building capacity in the developing world. Live stream child sexual abuse, that happens in places like the Philippines and Indonesia, that's feeding the deviant sexual appetites of Australians and Americans and Canadians and others," Ms Inman Grant said.
"These are desperate people selling their children or their nieces and nephews ... we shouldn't be feeding that demand."
eSafety Commission investigators saw a 129 per cent increase in reports of child sexual exploitation material in 2020, and then a further 95 per cent increase in 2021.
"Until companies make hosting this kind of content inhospitable we're all going to be playing a game of Whack-a-Mole," Ms Inman Grant said.
The nature of online child exploitation and abuse material has changed over the past decade. Now, the majority of content online is coerced but self-produced.
"Law enforcement and hotlines around the globe has seen an absolute tsunami of child sexual abuse material and the nature of it is changing," Ms Inman Grant said.
"Ten years ago, largely what we would see is young children being [abused]. And sometimes, you know, under the age of three before they can talk.
"Today, seven out of 10 of the pieces of content we're seeing are what we call coerced but self produced child sexual exploitation material. So these are tweens and teens, who are usually groomed on places like Instagram.
"Often predators will use fake or imposter accounts. They'll ask them for a sexy Skype or some imagery, they'll do what is called a screen capture ... so they have the evidence, and then they'll use it as a form of sexual extortion to threaten to share the images.
"We're literally being flooded with these tweens and teens who are being encouraged online to perform sexual acts on their smartphones, usually in their bathrooms or in their bedrooms."
The Unicef and WeProtect Global Alliance report uncovered gaps in Australia's national response to online child exploitation, in particular victim support.
Ms Inman Grant said that while some countries had a single national crime agency, Australia was split up into states and territories with a smaller federal police force, meaning coordination between departments was important.
"Another area where we really need to put more resourcing into is around support for victims, or what we call survivors.
"People need to receive counselling and specialised counselling throughout the course of their lives. And we we just don't have those trauma informed services and that victim support that I think we need to see."
If this article brought up issues or you would like to talk to someone you can seek support from one of these services. If it is life threatening call 000 Triple Zero.
- Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 (available 24/7, for young people between 5 and 25)
- eHeadspace 1800 650 890 (available 9am to 1am, everyday, for young people between 12 and 25)
- Lifeline 13 11 14 (available 24/7, for all ages)
- 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732 (available 24/7, for all ages)
- Mensline Australia 1300 78 99 78 (available 24/7, for men of all ages)
