The AFP urges parents and carers to use the start of the school year as a prompt to talk to their children about their internet use, especially from during the holidays, and report any inappropriate contact received while online.
Data from the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) shows a spike in reporting of online child sexual exploitation during, and immediately after, school holidays.
In the 2023-24 financial year, the ACCCE received 58,503 reports of online child sexual exploitation, an average of 160 reports per day. This was a 45 per cent increase on the previous financial year's total of 40,232 reports.
In the ACCCE's first year of operation in 2018, it received 14,285 reports of online child sexual exploitation, with the number of reports increasing each year since.
AFP Human Exploitation Commander Helen Schneider, head of the ACCCE, said offenders often took advantage of children and young people spending more time connected to devices unsupervised during school holidays.
"The increased popularity and availability of internet-enabled devices and online gaming, social networking or image and video-sharing applications, provides more ways for online offenders to target children and young people and manipulate or threaten them into providing sexually explicit content," Commander Schneider said.
"When children and young people head back to school and reconnect with friends and their schooling community, they may discuss any inappropriate online contact they received."
Commander Schneider said children and young people were never to blame for falling victim to online child sexual exploitation.
"If your child has been targeted, reassure them it's not their fault and there is help available," she said.
Commander Schneider said although most parents and carers were aware of the dangers online, the growing number of reports indicated offenders were still reaching children and young people.
"Children and young people may think there is no risk in chatting to people they have never met in 'real life', but in these conversations with people they don't know, they may share personal details, images or photos that lead to them being exploited or sextorted," Commander Schneider said.
"When making a report about online child sexual exploitation to the ACCCE, we encourage parents and carers to collect as much evidence as possible. This includes screenshots of conversations or chats, URLs, usernames, profile information and email addresses as this information can be critical to an investigation."
Advice from the ACCCE on reporting online child sexual exploitation
Collect evidence.
Take screenshots of any conversation (remember not to screenshot, save, share or distribute any explicit images of the underage person as this is an offence)
Record social media details including account profiles, profile usernames and URLs
Dates and times
Any other information you have about interactions
Block the account.
Report to the ACCCE and seek support services for your child
If you believe a child is in immediate danger, please call 000.
The AFP and its partners are committed to stopping online child sexual exploitation and abuse and the ACCCE is driving a collaborative national approach.
The ACCCE brings together specialist expertise and skills in a central hub, supporting investigations into online child sexual exploitation and developing prevention strategies focused on creating a safer online environment.
