OSCE Asian Partners for Cooperation Group Meeting
Enhancing Human Security: Protecting Youth and Children from Online Exploitation and Trafficking
21 June 2024
Statement delivered by Dr Katie Mead, Australia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organisations in Vienna
Excellencies, colleagues,
I thank North Macedonia and Thailand for raising this important issue.
I also thank our speakers for their insights and their continuing contributions in their respective fields.
Australia is pleased to be able to contribute to this discussion today. We value the opportunity to bring Indo-Pacific perspectives to this forum, and we commend the OSCE’s continued focus on the complex and intersecting factors that affect the region’s security.
Despite the many challenges the organisation faces in the context of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the OSCE continues to play an important role in the security architecture of Europe and beyond.
We welcome the focus on online exploitation and trafficking.
Australia is committed to combating exploitation in all its forms.
As we have heard today, digital technology is facilitating the exploitation and trafficking of children and young people.
Online child sexual exploitation and abuse is increasingly prevalent, commodified, and worsened by the speed, scale, and scope of digital technologies.
New and emerging technologies, like generative artificial intelligence, have further exacerbated the risk of harm to young people.
Australia has the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online. Our eSafety Commissioner is driving progress on the principles, measures, and remedies needed to combat violence against children online, sharing this as a model approach for online safety engagement.
In May, Australia announced a suite of new online safety measures, including to limit access to damaging material by children and young people.
These measures will include a pilot test of the efficacy of online age assurance technology to protect children from harm.
This month, Australia introduced legislation to modernise and strengthen criminal offences that deal with the non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit material online, including material created or altered using technology, such as deepfakes.
These reforms make clear that creating and sharing sexually explicit material without consent, using technology like AI, will be subject to serious criminal penalties.
Australia recognises the importance of partnerships to help us more effectively regulate online platforms so that we can ensures users – including youth and children – are protected from harm.
We actively engage our young people, through the eSafety Youth Council, giving them the opportunity to share their insights and experiences about online safety with government.
And we are working with international partners to address the transnational and transregional challenges posed by exploitation and trafficking.
Australia has shared over 20 years of partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—ASEAN—to combat trafficking in persons.
Since 2003, Australia has provided more than A$160 million in development assistance to ASEAN countries to strengthen criminal justice responses and improve victim protection and support.
This includes our current 10-year, A$80 million ASEAN-Australia Counter Trafficking program.
And the $24 million Tripartite Action to Enhance the Contribution of Labour Migration to Growth and Development (TRIANGLE) in ASEAN Program, which we co‑fund with Canada.
Through Australia’s work with our regional partners, 10,000 government officials have now been trained to better identify, protect and support victims of trafficking and their families.
The Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime is central to our partnership approach in the region.
It facilitates increased cooperation between member states and international organisations, through policy engagement, information sharing and practical cooperation.
Australia was pleased to support Thailand to establish its Counter Trafficking in Persons Centre of Excellence – launched just last month.
The Centre is Southeast Asia’s first dedicated training facility, aiming to build and sustain a cadre of professionals equipped to respond to all forms of trafficking in persons.
We are also proud to have supported Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines to develop a study exploring the intersection between disability and human trafficking in those countries. That study was launched here at the OSCE at the 24th Alliance Against Trafficking in Persons Conference in April.
Online exploitation and trafficking are growing threats to the most vulnerable in our communities. We look forward to exploring what more can be done with partners across our region, in the OSCE region, and globally to address the threats to our security posed by these abhorrent crimes.
Thank you.