TRIGGER WARNING: The following content contains images that some people may find distressing.
Established on 3 September 2018, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) was built on collaboration and innovation to achieve the vision of all children free from online exploitation.
This year the ACCCE marks three years of working with its partners from Government, Commonwealth and law enforcement agencies, non-government organisations, academic and industry to achieve this vision.
Thanks to the dedicated staff working tirelessly at the ACCCE, the last three years has seen some incredible operational achievements with more than 60,000 incoming reports, assisted with 470 AFP arrests with over 4,300 charges laid and the removal of 438 children from harm both within Australia and internationally.
Operation MOLTO which stemmed from an ACCCE law enforcement report, is now one of the AFPs most successful child abuse prevention operations with over 100 offenders charged, 888 offences and 30 children removed from harm nationwide.
Alongside these operational achievements, many public initiatives have been launched this year to raise awareness, encourage discussions within the community and help our operational teams with their investigations. We were proud to launch the Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object initiative in Australia in March.
The initiative born out of Europol encourages members of the community to identify objects from the backgrounds of an image containing sexually explicit material involving children.
Since its launch, there have already been more than 52,000 webpage views resulting in 571 reports, some which have helped our Victim Identification Unit narrow down on a location or opened up new leads.
Images are available to view and report at accce.gov.au/trace.
The ACCCE’s very own Podcast series ‘Closing The Net’ was met with great success and gives listeners a greater understanding about the work of the Australian Federal Police and those policing the borderless crime of online child sexual exploitation.
Since its release on 23 June it has been download more than 48,000 times. The podcast is available on your favourite streaming service or accce.gov.au/closingthenet.
In addition to these remarkable achievements, the last year has seen the official opening of the ACCCE facility in Fortitude Valley Brisbane, the launch of a brand new website, hosting of the first Victim Identification Taskforce in the Southern Hemisphere, the fourth Prevention Stakeholder Workshop being held and the attendance and support of key stakeholder events and initiatives – just to name a few. It’s been a very busy 12 months.
Follow the ACCCE on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with milestones, launches and achievements. For more information including resources and support visit thinkuknow.org.au and accce.gov.au/support