April 18, 2022 • 21 mins
Part 4 of 7. What is grooming?
This series of podcasts is produced with the support of the Office of the eSafety Commissioner.
We will look closely at how young people might engage with sexual content online and how parents and carers can get involved in this discussion.
In this episode Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling talks about what grooming is and how the police go about education and investigations.
Grooming can be reported through Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. Also AFP Child Protection Operations (CPO) team. See also Think U Know educational resources.
See eSafety at https://www.esafety.gov.au/. Sexual Health Victoria at https://shvic.org.au/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This podcast is intended for an adult audience.
Take care if there might be young people listening.
This one might also contain content which is distressing for people of any age.
Welcome to doing it.
This is a podcast to help parents carers and anyone working with young people understand relationships and sexuality education.
(00:23):
My name is anne and I work with the sexual health victoria's schools and community team.
We deliver that everybody education program to school age Children so they can better understand their own bodies.
Growing up respect consent reproduction,
sex,
sexual health and relationships.
This is episode four of a seven part series produced with the support of the E Safety Commissioner.
(00:47):
Go back if you've missed any in the safety best practice framework for online safety education,
there's reference to Children's rights online.
They say that young people have the right to provision participation and protection in the digital world.
In this series,
I'm focusing on protection.
We understand that comprehensive relationships and sexuality education can be a protective factor for young people on or offline.
(01:14):
In this episode I'm discussing,
grooming,
grooming is a difficult thing for many parents and carers to talk about,
as it potentially involves an explanation of sexual abuse.
Young people are often taught to be wary of strangers online,
but predators might be someone from within the social circle of a family.
I think it's important to understand that the sexual contact does not need to occur for an offense to have been committed,
(01:41):
Grooming is when an adult over 18 sets up a relationship with the intention of future sexual activity with someone who's under 16 relationships and sexuality education is a protective factor for young people when it comes to grooming,
we want young people to have the language and confidence to talk about sexual behavior that they think is unethical or illegal and know who they can tell about it.
(02:10):
His Superintendent jane crossing from the Australian Center to counter child exploitation.
Okay,
I'm just going to start with my first question jane.
Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Obviously,
my first question is going to be what is grooming?
What does it mean?
(02:30):
So grooming when we're talking about grooming in the online context,
it's a criminal offense that the AFP tends to investigate.
We have jurisdiction,
but certainly the States and territories can investigate as well.
But online grooming is specifically when an adult makes contact online through some sort of online mechanism,
(02:55):
a child under the age of 16 and they have the intention of developing some sort of relationship with them to enable some form of sexual abuse.
So that might include asking them to create videos or photos of a sexual nature,
thankfully the way that the commonwealth offense is created.
(03:19):
Um,
all all of the offending behavior actually happens via that communication.
That's a very important phase of the grooming process because we don't have to sit around and wait for any physical contact to ever take place.
We would really like to avoid that ever happening.
It means we can intervene if we need to,
(03:40):
just by virtue of that communication happening between an adult and a young person.
So the adult is essentially looking to break down any barriers that there might be between an adult and a young person when talking about what are often adult sexual concepts.
(04:00):
And they have all sorts of tricks that they utilized to do that.
Um,
and sometimes that might mean being an age that is closer to the victim's age that can help break down those barriers.
It still makes it an offense of course,
that they're pretending to be someone of a similar age to the victim,
(04:22):
so they can act very,
very rapidly.
Unfortunately,
we've seen it quite a lot lately where a groomer is very,
very skilled at getting these images out of a young person incredibly rapidly.
Others are very patient and use very long term and sophisticated tips and tricks to break down those barriers and encourage a young person to share images or videos and over time perhaps increase the amount of images or videos that they're providing or increase the extreme extremity of those images as well.
(05:03):
So,
um,
they use all sorts of different techniques to engage with Children in ways that um allow them to feel comfortable in sharing this material,
which is certainly problematic as both a police officer and a parent.
Yeah,
(05:24):
I think that's really interesting and something that's easy to forget is that the sexual contact doesn't have to happen.
So is it true that a sexual image doesn't need to be exchanged as long as it can be proved that there was intent for that to happen.
That's correct.
Um we we might intervene in those sorts of situations or that might allow us to protect that particular victim.
(05:50):
But then in doing so we can uncover previous attempts that they have done that and potentially been successful.
So this is where reporting is so incredibly important.
And certainly I really think we could talk about how to report and when to report in so much detail.
That could be a podcast in and of itself,
(06:11):
but it is incredibly important that young people know when something doesn't feel right,
when they're being asked to say or do something that pushes them outside their comfort zone and they need to know that it's okay to tell someone a trusted adult ideally apparent,
but not always apparent.
(06:31):
We understand that,
but they need to tell somebody.
And you said people offenders are often very skilled at making those connections.
So what sort of apps or what sort of methods of communication our young people targeted for grooming on.
It's fair to say that if there are young people on a particular game Apple site,
(06:53):
that's where the groomers are.
So they know what the young people are on and what they're into and particularly know what appeals to different age groups.
So depending on what the preference of the offender might be is where they will start looking for those young people.
(07:14):
It's so broad.
Um Our data shows that you know facebook is still a very large source of our reports that we receive here at um the Australian senator counter child exploitation.
But there are other games and apps that are popular particularly with primary school aged Children,
(07:35):
Fortnite roadblocks Minecraft.
Those sorts of games are incredibly age appropriate and young people absolutely love them And I understand the appeal.
But unfortunately some parents may not realize that those sorts of games have an inbuilt chat functionality and it's through that chat functionality that the groomers can often target young people.
(08:00):
So this is where we ask parents to consider do they understand how the young person is actually using these particular games?
You can use games like Minecraft for example offline which means you don't actually have to interact with anybody else.
You can turn off chat functionality or you can ensure that your young person doesn't have any of their personal details revealed through their handle that they use online and they can operate quite safely.
(08:27):
But with some supervision we certainly believe that these sorts of games should not be kids should not be on them without some form of supervision,
particularly for primary school aged Children.
This is where parents engaging with their young people from the moment that they start interacting with technology is incredibly important and that's the whole premise of the p lead program called think you know,
(08:51):
where we do go out and speak with both school aged Children at every age as well as teachers,
parents and carers about the fact that you need to be very much involved in your young person's online life and know what they're doing,
understand the games apps,
sites that they typically like to be on,
(09:14):
and then also educate yourself about how they're using it and what are the risks and benefits of each of those.
We have a lot of data out there to say that parents don't really pay attention to what their young people are doing online and believe that they're safe without necessarily taking those extra steps to ensure that they are.
(09:35):
I guess we're also promoting is confidence in that conversation about sexual behavior because young people feel really reluctant in particular to report things like that.
Absolutely.
And there's a whole lot of stuff going on there which we absolutely understand just as difficult as it is to talk to a young person about sexual concepts.
(09:59):
I think they also feel differently challenged about having conversations about what young people are doing online regardless of whether or not they believe it also has a sexual aspect to it probably an overlapping Venn diagram I know from speaking to young people that they have this sense of stranger danger and they're not supposed to share information or become friends with people that they don't know how often our young people contacted online by a stranger and is grooming always perpetrated by a stranger pretty complex question.
(10:32):
But I guess the problem we have is definitions and what a young person thinks is a stranger.
So when we've spoken to young people and we've sort of said,
you know,
how come you've friended this person who you didn't actually know in the real world?
Are they not a stranger?
They'll say,
oh no,
they're a friend of so and so,
(10:53):
and therefore now they're my friend and therefore they're not a stranger,
which that's their logic.
And we sort of need to counter that a little bit and ask them to sense check their logic because they don't know that person and they're making a few quantum leaps there with their understanding of who this person might be.
(11:15):
The difference between real world stranger danger and online,
stranger danger I think is problematic and not necessarily understood by a young person.
And I think there remains a risk that they can be convinced that they are in fact a friend through a variety of techniques,
even if they've only ever met this person online.
(11:35):
And as young people move into the teenage years and they might actually go online to date,
then that becomes even more problematic with the concept of what popular media might call catfishing,
where people are not who they say they are for a variety of reasons.
(11:55):
And yet the young person would actually think that they knew that person and that they weren't in fact a stranger for the offending that we see online.
Yes,
it is almost always somebody that's not known to them.
The difference might be in instances where we've actually seen mothers of victims be groomed for the purpose of having access to their Children.
(12:22):
And those sorts of techniques might include convincing the mother that their child can,
you know,
get modeling contracts and things like that.
So it is actually the mother in many instances that is being groomed.
That's problematic because the child has to essentially believe that this person isn't a stranger because the mother knows them.
(12:45):
So that's really complex and shows the links to which some groomers will go to to be very,
very manipulative to get what it is that they want ordinarily,
if a young person knows them in the real world,
then they don't need to be groomed online.
They are groomed unfortunately in a real world way,
(13:07):
and that is obviously happening everywhere in the world.
There's a lot of data to suggest that for a lot of,
not just young people,
but women more broadly who are victims of sexual assault,
they actually know the perpetrator.
So,
um,
yes,
(13:28):
real world,
grooming happens in a different way,
I guess.
Um,
so what should parents and carers be alert to what sort of messages or what sort of frequency of contact or are there alarm bells that could be seen by a parent?
Yes.
So I think if there's communication with a young person that's asking questions about,
(13:51):
you know,
what school you go to or you know,
tell me like what you want to do on the weekend and things like that that go outside the context of the chatter that's maybe related to that particular game,
then I think that that's definitely problematic.
So if parents are aware that their Children are chatting with people online,
um,
(14:11):
and if they're okay with that,
they can monitor that and ensure that it's,
it's just about the game.
So if a young person feels really comfortable in that space,
but might be inadvertently revealing a whole lot of information about who they are,
what their plans are,
you know,
what their sibling situation is,
then that's absolutely problematic because we would look at that from a law enforcement perspective and say,
(14:36):
you know,
why are they asking those sorts of questions?
We would be definitely suspicious and there would be red flags there and then that presents potentially an opportunity to block and report.
So we definitely recommend through our thinking program when we do engage with parents that um when a young person first starts using a particular game or app,
(14:59):
they understand together how it operates and they understand that if there's something that isn't right.
If there's some one or some content that makes them feel uncomfortable,
then they know together how to block and report.
and I think that that can be very empowering for a young person,
another really important aspect that we know a parent really needs to consider is the fact that it's a very natural reaction for a parent to want to remove the device because they see that as the delivery mechanism of the problem,
(15:35):
but that's not necessarily the answer.
And for a young person who has really good quality and healthy relationships with other people online,
removing the device actually causes them to lose connections that they have in the online world.
Plus they feel like they're being punished again and they're less likely perhaps to come back to a parent when something does go wrong next time because they'll think the parent will just take the device away.
(16:07):
So unfortunately it means having to sit down and rip the problem apart a little bit and understanding that the device was just the delivery mechanism,
what what was,
what was it actually about and what can we do about it,
it can be really,
really challenging and as young people move into puberty that can be a really difficult time to ensure that those lines of communication are open for any subject,
(16:32):
we don't shy away from the importance of it,
but we do most certainly understand that keeping those lines of communication always open is going to be really tough,
You've mentioned a couple of times people,
young people knowing avenues of reporting and I know young people often say well what's the point because they think nothing would happen if they do report particularly to a platform.
(16:54):
So how can we stress the importance of that?
And what else should young people know about grooming?
Like what should they be told in terms of being alert to it?
So they need to feel empowered and they most definitely should report to the platform in the first instance.
All of those platforms particularly any that are based in the US and that is a very large proportion of them.
(17:15):
They all have to mandatorily report any instances of grooming or sharing of child abuse material on their platforms.
So all of those reports are then sent to the relevant law enforcement agencies around the world,
wherever the either the victim is or the the I.
(17:36):
P.
Address of the offending device.
So all of those I.
P.
Addresses are sent to the ace here in Brisbane and it is the FPs responsibility to triage all of those reports and send them out to either FP teams or state or territory police teams around Australia.
So I can assure you we are absolutely flat out dealing with all of those reports.
(17:58):
We absolutely can't deal with everything.
And certainly just an attempted grooming,
we may not necessarily be able to do anything about it if that's just an isolated incident.
But most certainly if there is exchanging of sexual images or videos.
Yes if people most definitely want to know about that and want to follow up on it.
(18:22):
So as I said,
we have teams all over the place that are working really,
really hard.
In addition to the platforms having to report mandatorily,
the members of the public can actually report this behavior as well.
And we do see a lot of really proactive parents reporting.
So you can report through the thinking a website or the A.
(18:43):
F.
P.
Website or the ace website to a big red button that says report abuse.
And that's an online form and what we see,
particularly for a lot of teenagers,
they really like the idea of not having to interact with anybody and just being able to type in what happened to them.
(19:04):
I think it's potentially less confronting than having to tell a person.
And then we have staff here in Brisbane that monitor that Not quite 24/7 but pretty solid coverage.
And we will get onto that pretty quickly,
will then need to speak to the victim ideally or their parent depending on who's made the report.
(19:27):
But um you know,
we're pretty responsive,
particularly if a young person at imminent risk.
If that happens,
then all bets are off,
we drop everything.
If we thought that a child was in the process of being physically abused um or was about to be,
we would if we can't get there then we would send state or territory police to that location.
(19:50):
So the importance there is timely reporting and I never imagined that nothing is being done.
And I can understand why young people would think that.
Rest assured.
There's a lot of things happening behind the scenes to ensure that young people can stay safe.
Thanks so much to Detective Superintendent jane cross selling such an important reminder to keep lines of communication open arm your young people with the skills and language to be able to call out unethical or illegal conduct online and know who to tell about it.
(20:28):
On the theme of protection.
As jane said,
the temptation is to remove the delivery mechanism.
The real protection comes from being able to talk about online behavior about sexual content and about consent for more information about sexual health victoria.
Go to s H vic dot org dot au.
(20:50):
For research information and resources on the safety go to e safety dot gov.
Dot au grooming can be reported through the A.
F.
P.
Child protection operations team.
I'll put a link in the show notes,
jane also mentioned the think you know program and she also mentioned the Australian Center to counter child exploitation website which has a reporting function.
(21:17):
I'll put a link to the show notes for that.
Also,
you can contact me directly at doing it at vic dot org dot au.
You can follow us on social media.
Please get in touch and I love your feedback and comments like the podcast if you like it,
share it.
If you feel like it would be helpful.
Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is intended for an adult audience.
Take care if there might be young people listening.
This one might also contain content which is distressing for people of any age.
Welcome to doing it.
This is a podcast to help parents carers and anyone working with young people understand relationships and sexuality education.
(00:23):
My name is anne and I work with the sexual health victoria's schools and community team.
We deliver that everybody education program to school age Children so they can better understand their own bodies.
Growing up respect consent reproduction,
sex,
sexual health and relationships.
This is episode four of a seven part series produced with the support of the E Safety Commissioner.
(00:47):
Go back if you've missed any in the safety best practice framework for online safety education,
there's reference to Children's rights online.
They say that young people have the right to provision participation and protection in the digital world.
In this series,
I'm focusing on protection.
We understand that comprehensive relationships and sexuality education can be a protective factor for young people on or offline.
(01:14):
In this episode I'm discussing,
grooming,
grooming is a difficult thing for many parents and carers to talk about,
as it potentially involves an explanation of sexual abuse.
Young people are often taught to be wary of strangers online,
but predators might be someone from within the social circle of a family.
I think it's important to understand that the sexual contact does not need to occur for an offense to have been committed,
(01:41):
Grooming is when an adult over 18 sets up a relationship with the intention of future sexual activity with someone who's under 16 relationships and sexuality education is a protective factor for young people when it comes to grooming,
we want young people to have the language and confidence to talk about sexual behavior that they think is unethical or illegal and know who they can tell about it.
(02:10):
His Superintendent jane crossing from the Australian Center to counter child exploitation.
Okay,
I'm just going to start with my first question jane.
Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Obviously,
my first question is going to be what is grooming?
What does it mean?
(02:30):
So grooming when we're talking about grooming in the online context,
it's a criminal offense that the AFP tends to investigate.
We have jurisdiction,
but certainly the States and territories can investigate as well.
But online grooming is specifically when an adult makes contact online through some sort of online mechanism,
(02:55):
a child under the age of 16 and they have the intention of developing some sort of relationship with them to enable some form of sexual abuse.
So that might include asking them to create videos or photos of a sexual nature,
thankfully the way that the commonwealth offense is created.
(03:19):
Um,
all all of the offending behavior actually happens via that communication.
That's a very important phase of the grooming process because we don't have to sit around and wait for any physical contact to ever take place.
We would really like to avoid that ever happening.
It means we can intervene if we need to,
(03:40):
just by virtue of that communication happening between an adult and a young person.
So the adult is essentially looking to break down any barriers that there might be between an adult and a young person when talking about what are often adult sexual concepts.
(04:00):
And they have all sorts of tricks that they utilized to do that.
Um,
and sometimes that might mean being an age that is closer to the victim's age that can help break down those barriers.
It still makes it an offense of course,
that they're pretending to be someone of a similar age to the victim,
(04:22):
so they can act very,
very rapidly.
Unfortunately,
we've seen it quite a lot lately where a groomer is very,
very skilled at getting these images out of a young person incredibly rapidly.
Others are very patient and use very long term and sophisticated tips and tricks to break down those barriers and encourage a young person to share images or videos and over time perhaps increase the amount of images or videos that they're providing or increase the extreme extremity of those images as well.
(05:03):
So,
um,
they use all sorts of different techniques to engage with Children in ways that um allow them to feel comfortable in sharing this material,
which is certainly problematic as both a police officer and a parent.
Yeah,
(05:24):
I think that's really interesting and something that's easy to forget is that the sexual contact doesn't have to happen.
So is it true that a sexual image doesn't need to be exchanged as long as it can be proved that there was intent for that to happen.
That's correct.
Um we we might intervene in those sorts of situations or that might allow us to protect that particular victim.
(05:50):
But then in doing so we can uncover previous attempts that they have done that and potentially been successful.
So this is where reporting is so incredibly important.
And certainly I really think we could talk about how to report and when to report in so much detail.
That could be a podcast in and of itself,
(06:11):
but it is incredibly important that young people know when something doesn't feel right,
when they're being asked to say or do something that pushes them outside their comfort zone and they need to know that it's okay to tell someone a trusted adult ideally apparent,
but not always apparent.
(06:31):
We understand that,
but they need to tell somebody.
And you said people offenders are often very skilled at making those connections.
So what sort of apps or what sort of methods of communication our young people targeted for grooming on.
It's fair to say that if there are young people on a particular game Apple site,
(06:53):
that's where the groomers are.
So they know what the young people are on and what they're into and particularly know what appeals to different age groups.
So depending on what the preference of the offender might be is where they will start looking for those young people.
(07:14):
It's so broad.
Um Our data shows that you know facebook is still a very large source of our reports that we receive here at um the Australian senator counter child exploitation.
But there are other games and apps that are popular particularly with primary school aged Children,
(07:35):
Fortnite roadblocks Minecraft.
Those sorts of games are incredibly age appropriate and young people absolutely love them And I understand the appeal.
But unfortunately some parents may not realize that those sorts of games have an inbuilt chat functionality and it's through that chat functionality that the groomers can often target young people.
(08:00):
So this is where we ask parents to consider do they understand how the young person is actually using these particular games?
You can use games like Minecraft for example offline which means you don't actually have to interact with anybody else.
You can turn off chat functionality or you can ensure that your young person doesn't have any of their personal details revealed through their handle that they use online and they can operate quite safely.
(08:27):
But with some supervision we certainly believe that these sorts of games should not be kids should not be on them without some form of supervision,
particularly for primary school aged Children.
This is where parents engaging with their young people from the moment that they start interacting with technology is incredibly important and that's the whole premise of the p lead program called think you know,
(08:51):
where we do go out and speak with both school aged Children at every age as well as teachers,
parents and carers about the fact that you need to be very much involved in your young person's online life and know what they're doing,
understand the games apps,
sites that they typically like to be on,
(09:14):
and then also educate yourself about how they're using it and what are the risks and benefits of each of those.
We have a lot of data out there to say that parents don't really pay attention to what their young people are doing online and believe that they're safe without necessarily taking those extra steps to ensure that they are.
(09:35):
I guess we're also promoting is confidence in that conversation about sexual behavior because young people feel really reluctant in particular to report things like that.
Absolutely.
And there's a whole lot of stuff going on there which we absolutely understand just as difficult as it is to talk to a young person about sexual concepts.
(09:59):
I think they also feel differently challenged about having conversations about what young people are doing online regardless of whether or not they believe it also has a sexual aspect to it probably an overlapping Venn diagram I know from speaking to young people that they have this sense of stranger danger and they're not supposed to share information or become friends with people that they don't know how often our young people contacted online by a stranger and is grooming always perpetrated by a stranger pretty complex question.
(10:32):
But I guess the problem we have is definitions and what a young person thinks is a stranger.
So when we've spoken to young people and we've sort of said,
you know,
how come you've friended this person who you didn't actually know in the real world?
Are they not a stranger?
They'll say,
oh no,
they're a friend of so and so,
(10:53):
and therefore now they're my friend and therefore they're not a stranger,
which that's their logic.
And we sort of need to counter that a little bit and ask them to sense check their logic because they don't know that person and they're making a few quantum leaps there with their understanding of who this person might be.
(11:15):
The difference between real world stranger danger and online,
stranger danger I think is problematic and not necessarily understood by a young person.
And I think there remains a risk that they can be convinced that they are in fact a friend through a variety of techniques,
even if they've only ever met this person online.
(11:35):
And as young people move into the teenage years and they might actually go online to date,
then that becomes even more problematic with the concept of what popular media might call catfishing,
where people are not who they say they are for a variety of reasons.
(11:55):
And yet the young person would actually think that they knew that person and that they weren't in fact a stranger for the offending that we see online.
Yes,
it is almost always somebody that's not known to them.
The difference might be in instances where we've actually seen mothers of victims be groomed for the purpose of having access to their Children.
(12:22):
And those sorts of techniques might include convincing the mother that their child can,
you know,
get modeling contracts and things like that.
So it is actually the mother in many instances that is being groomed.
That's problematic because the child has to essentially believe that this person isn't a stranger because the mother knows them.
(12:45):
So that's really complex and shows the links to which some groomers will go to to be very,
very manipulative to get what it is that they want ordinarily,
if a young person knows them in the real world,
then they don't need to be groomed online.
They are groomed unfortunately in a real world way,
(13:07):
and that is obviously happening everywhere in the world.
There's a lot of data to suggest that for a lot of,
not just young people,
but women more broadly who are victims of sexual assault,
they actually know the perpetrator.
So,
um,
yes,
(13:28):
real world,
grooming happens in a different way,
I guess.
Um,
so what should parents and carers be alert to what sort of messages or what sort of frequency of contact or are there alarm bells that could be seen by a parent?
Yes.
So I think if there's communication with a young person that's asking questions about,
(13:51):
you know,
what school you go to or you know,
tell me like what you want to do on the weekend and things like that that go outside the context of the chatter that's maybe related to that particular game,
then I think that that's definitely problematic.
So if parents are aware that their Children are chatting with people online,
um,
(14:11):
and if they're okay with that,
they can monitor that and ensure that it's,
it's just about the game.
So if a young person feels really comfortable in that space,
but might be inadvertently revealing a whole lot of information about who they are,
what their plans are,
you know,
what their sibling situation is,
then that's absolutely problematic because we would look at that from a law enforcement perspective and say,
(14:36):
you know,
why are they asking those sorts of questions?
We would be definitely suspicious and there would be red flags there and then that presents potentially an opportunity to block and report.
So we definitely recommend through our thinking program when we do engage with parents that um when a young person first starts using a particular game or app,
(14:59):
they understand together how it operates and they understand that if there's something that isn't right.
If there's some one or some content that makes them feel uncomfortable,
then they know together how to block and report.
and I think that that can be very empowering for a young person,
another really important aspect that we know a parent really needs to consider is the fact that it's a very natural reaction for a parent to want to remove the device because they see that as the delivery mechanism of the problem,
(15:35):
but that's not necessarily the answer.
And for a young person who has really good quality and healthy relationships with other people online,
removing the device actually causes them to lose connections that they have in the online world.
Plus they feel like they're being punished again and they're less likely perhaps to come back to a parent when something does go wrong next time because they'll think the parent will just take the device away.
(16:07):
So unfortunately it means having to sit down and rip the problem apart a little bit and understanding that the device was just the delivery mechanism,
what what was,
what was it actually about and what can we do about it,
it can be really,
really challenging and as young people move into puberty that can be a really difficult time to ensure that those lines of communication are open for any subject,
(16:32):
we don't shy away from the importance of it,
but we do most certainly understand that keeping those lines of communication always open is going to be really tough,
You've mentioned a couple of times people,
young people knowing avenues of reporting and I know young people often say well what's the point because they think nothing would happen if they do report particularly to a platform.
(16:54):
So how can we stress the importance of that?
And what else should young people know about grooming?
Like what should they be told in terms of being alert to it?
So they need to feel empowered and they most definitely should report to the platform in the first instance.
All of those platforms particularly any that are based in the US and that is a very large proportion of them.
(17:15):
They all have to mandatorily report any instances of grooming or sharing of child abuse material on their platforms.
So all of those reports are then sent to the relevant law enforcement agencies around the world,
wherever the either the victim is or the the I.
(17:36):
P.
Address of the offending device.
So all of those I.
P.
Addresses are sent to the ace here in Brisbane and it is the FPs responsibility to triage all of those reports and send them out to either FP teams or state or territory police teams around Australia.
So I can assure you we are absolutely flat out dealing with all of those reports.
(17:58):
We absolutely can't deal with everything.
And certainly just an attempted grooming,
we may not necessarily be able to do anything about it if that's just an isolated incident.
But most certainly if there is exchanging of sexual images or videos.
Yes if people most definitely want to know about that and want to follow up on it.
(18:22):
So as I said,
we have teams all over the place that are working really,
really hard.
In addition to the platforms having to report mandatorily,
the members of the public can actually report this behavior as well.
And we do see a lot of really proactive parents reporting.
So you can report through the thinking a website or the A.
(18:43):
F.
P.
Website or the ace website to a big red button that says report abuse.
And that's an online form and what we see,
particularly for a lot of teenagers,
they really like the idea of not having to interact with anybody and just being able to type in what happened to them.
(19:04):
I think it's potentially less confronting than having to tell a person.
And then we have staff here in Brisbane that monitor that Not quite 24/7 but pretty solid coverage.
And we will get onto that pretty quickly,
will then need to speak to the victim ideally or their parent depending on who's made the report.
(19:27):
But um you know,
we're pretty responsive,
particularly if a young person at imminent risk.
If that happens,
then all bets are off,
we drop everything.
If we thought that a child was in the process of being physically abused um or was about to be,
we would if we can't get there then we would send state or territory police to that location.
(19:50):
So the importance there is timely reporting and I never imagined that nothing is being done.
And I can understand why young people would think that.
Rest assured.
There's a lot of things happening behind the scenes to ensure that young people can stay safe.
Thanks so much to Detective Superintendent jane cross selling such an important reminder to keep lines of communication open arm your young people with the skills and language to be able to call out unethical or illegal conduct online and know who to tell about it.
(20:28):
On the theme of protection.
As jane said,
the temptation is to remove the delivery mechanism.
The real protection comes from being able to talk about online behavior about sexual content and about consent for more information about sexual health victoria.
Go to s H vic dot org dot au.
(20:50):
For research information and resources on the safety go to e safety dot gov.
Dot au grooming can be reported through the A.
F.
P.
Child protection operations team.
I'll put a link in the show notes,
jane also mentioned the think you know program and she also mentioned the Australian Center to counter child exploitation website which has a reporting function.
(21:17):
I'll put a link to the show notes for that.
Also,
you can contact me directly at doing it at vic dot org dot au.
You can follow us on social media.
Please get in touch and I love your feedback and comments like the podcast if you like it,
share it.
If you feel like it would be helpful.
Thanks so much for listening.
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