Australian-first initiative ‘Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object’ opens up investigations to community

​​The Australian Federal Police-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) is calling on members of the community to join the fight against online child sexual exploitation.

Launched today at the ACCCE facility in Brisbane ‘Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object’ is a community focused initiative aimed to help identify objects extracted from the backgrounds of sexually explicit materials involving children.

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the initiative that originated from Europol in 2017 gives the community an opportunity to help law enforcement crack cases that are yet to be solved.

“Members of the public can view a range of objects with the intention to identify the origin of the particular piece of clothing or other item that could result in an offender and victim being both identified and located,” Mr Dutton said.

“These small everyday objects can sometimes end up being a key lead in an investigation – the smallest clue can often help solve a case.”

With the collaboration of the ACCCE and the ‘Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object’ initiative, this presents itself as ACCCE’s biggest partnership yet with all Australians.

“The ACCCE is committed to outsmarting serious crime and striving to be one step ahead, because the world we live in demands it, and our community expects it.”

Over the past 12 months the ACCCE’s Victim Identification Unit has provided ongoing support to six large scale, multi-agency operations, focused on the arrest of child sex offenders and the safeguarding of their victims both within Australia and overseas.

For more information and to view the objects visit the
Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation website*.

*WARNING: The following content contains images that may be distressing to some people.

/Public Release. View in full here.