National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse
The AFP is implementing a suite of measures under the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse (National Strategy) aimed at preventing and responding to child sexual abuse, a key recommendation from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission).
The AFP-led measures will boost frontline national law enforcement efforts, to prevent, disrupt, investigate and combat online child sexual abuse. This will also provide targeted and critical investment in Australian law enforcement agencies by investing in frontline operations and ensuring best-practice policing and specialist approaches nationally.
National Strategy Themes
Each measure under the National Strategy has been assigned to a main theme - the AFP-led measures primarily fall under Theme 4 Offender Prevention and Intervention including linkages to Theme 1, Theme 2 and Theme 5.
Theme 4: Offender prevention and intervention measures are critical to reducing the risk and extent of child sexual abuse. Measures under this theme will enhance law enforcement cooperation and activities to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse and build support programs that prevent offending, intervene before offending occurs and reduce repeat offending.
Under the National Strategy, the AFP will aim to balance community prevention and intervention programs against new and stronger law enforcement and intelligence responses to fight child sexual abuse. The AFP will use a strong data, research and evidence agenda to better understand and intervene in child sexual abuse offending.
Enhancing Law Enforcement Responses
Australian law enforcement agencies work closely together to investigate child sexual abuse through the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), alongside Joint Anti Child Exploitation Teams, including Australian Federal Police and state or territory police child protection teams located across Australia.
The AFP will build on partnerships and activities to:
- Plan for, meeting and leveraging the advances in technology to disrupt child sexual abuse
- Achieve consistency in victim identification and management, particularly with vulnerable communities
- Ensure interoperability, intel sharing and coordination with partners for maximum efficiency and operational impact
- Proactively target offenders and the disruption of the use of technology in child sexual abuse and associated profiteering
