House debates

Thursday, 1 December 2022

Statements by Members

Child Abuse

1:48 pm

Photo of Jason WoodJason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the horrific details I've been informed about regarding child abuse. The International Justice Mission informed me that the online sexual exploitation of children is, sadly, one of the fastest-growing crimes in world. It includes creating—how sick is that?—distributing and possessing child sexual exploitation material, like photos and videos. Alarmingly, I was informed that the abuse is actually live streamed right across the world by traffickers. Sadly, Australia is one of those markets. For as little as $19, people—sick individuals—can watch children abused online, and it's live streamed on platforms such as Facebook, Skype, Google, Yahoo, WhatsApp and Instagram. These multibillion dollar companies can simply stop this, but they refuse to do it. The sad thing is that when it comes to children being abused—in the Philippines, in particular—it can be a trusted adult selling this material online. I call on the Albanese Labor government to step in and do something about this. I'm not being critical of them at the moment, but we need to work as a parliament to address this issue, the same way we addressed this issue when it came to the awful terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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