STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator ANANDA-RAJAH (Victoria) (12:45): I notice we have a lot of children in the gallery. This speech is very much for them, and it's for their parents and carers right around Australia. There is a taboo in our country that is targeting our children, and we need to speak its name.
Thousands of boys and young men are suffering in silence, stigmatised and ashamed, after falling prey to sextortion. This is sexual extortion and blackmail in response to image based abuse. Sextortion is one of the fastest-growing online crimes we face.
A national study found that one in 10 Australian adolescents have experienced it, with over half occurring before the age of 16—children. Our kids are being targeted by this. In the second half of last year, our eSafety Commissioner received more than 2,200 complaints of sexual extortion, and victims are overwhelmingly male.
Nine in 10 victims of sexual extortion, or sextortion, are either young men or boys. It heavily affects those in the 18- to 24-year-old age group. That is the danger age, as well as kids under 16.
It's part of the reason why the Albanese Labor government introduced the social media delay, which kicks in from the age of 16. We need to protect and shield our children from these kinds of harm, because these harms are driving our kids, but especially our boys, towards depression, anxiety and, worse, suicidality. This is how the playbook works.
A boy is contacted online by someone posing as a friend, a peer or a young woman. They may also pose as a celebrity or a social media influencer and set up a lookalike social media account to make the child believe that they're interacting with a real person. Kids may receive unsolicited 'friend' or 'follow' requests from unknown persons.
They will ask personal questions like, 'How old are you?', 'Where do you go to school?' or 'Do you have any brothers and sisters?' They may ask for something in exchange for images from that child; they may offer likes or gaming codes in exchange for images. Some may even pretend to represent a company and tell the child or the young person that they have the potential to become a model or a social media influencer, and the child is asked to send photos.
Other warning signs are getting a direct message on one app and then being asked to continue chatting in another app, or that English may be a second language to this person—in other words, the language may not be crisp. The criminal might say that their webcam or microphone are not working on video calls or chats—so there's no real way of confirming the identity of the person on the other side.
Then the criminal says that they promise to delete your content. However, once the images are shared, things take a turn for the worse, with escalating threats: 'Pay up or these pictures will go to your family, to your friends, to your school, to everyone who follows you on social media'—because they harvest your contacts from social media. Increasingly, criminals are using AI to fabricate images that were never even real—in other words, using nudify apps, which we have banned.
This is the business model of organised crime. Shame is weaponised to make millions. But the consequences are driving our boys to the brink and sending families to the brink.
If you think you are a victim, or you know someone who is a victim of sextortion, do stop the chat. Do take screenshots of the text and the profile. Do block the account and report it to the platform.
Do get support from a trusted friend, family member or professional support services. Call the kids helpline, for example. Get onto the eSafety Commissioner's website and request a takedown.
They have a 98 per cent success rate. Contact the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, ACCCE, which is run by the AFP, the Australian Federal Police. They will catch these crooks.
Don't send any more images or pay as this will lead to more demands. Don't respond to the demands. Shut this down and, most importantly, don't think that you are alone.
You are not alone. It is important that we back our boys and our young men to speak up, because speaking up robs this crime of its shame and stigma. It's important for all Australians to be upstanders and to support our boys and our girls.
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