Exposing corporates profiting from child exploitation
September 4-10 is National Child Protection Week. The theme is 'Every child, in every community, needs a fair go'.
Read on to learn more about what we're doing to combat sexual abuse and exploitation of children, and to give children a 'fair go'.
Read: The Virtual Death of Nurture - MTR in Case Quarterly
MindGeek/Pornhub
We are part of a global campaign calling for the shutdown of Pornhub and for its owners to be held accountable for hosting illegal content, including child sexual abuse material. Read more here.
Child sexual abuse dolls
Last year we celebrated a major global campaign win after e-commerce giant Alibaba geoblocked sales of all sex dolls to Australia - read more here. We have continued to document child sex abuse dolls for sale on Etsy (read more here) and calling on it to stop. In May, Made-in-China.com removed listings for child sex abuse dolls including replica toddler girls and dolls modelled on real, living girls - after we exposed them. We are calling on MIC to ban all child sex abuse doll suppliers immediately. You can help us - learn more + take action here.
Last month, Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper launched her first book, 'Sex dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: A Case for Resistance'. Caitlin highlights the need for uniform legislation to stop the global trade in child sex abuse dolls and exposes their real-world harms to girls. Catch up on the launch + media highlights here.
Etsy: Stop selling incest and child abuse themed merch!
In January 2021, Melbourne musician, fashion designer and mum-of-four Anna Cordell launched a change.org petition calling on Etsy corporate heads to stop selling incest and child abuse themed merch. The petitition has reached 67k signatures and is backed by child safety experts who slammed Etsy for promoting the idea that girls want to be sexually abused by their fathers. Australian Childhood Foundation CEO Dr Joe Tucci said:
"This is obscene material that promotes, condones and normalises child sexual abuse. There is no justification for producing or selling these products. We should demand their immediate withdrawal."
Learn more, and sign and share the petition here.
We are also calling on Etsy shareholders to take action and call on Etsy to dump merchandise which fetishises, trivialises and normalises child sexual abuse. Read our letter to investors here.
SHEIN
We have been calling out online shopping giant SHEIN for marketing practises which sexualise young teens and put girls at risk of sexual exploitation. Recently, Ad Standards found the fast fashion brand in breach of the advertising Code of Ethics for an Instagram promo which portrayed a young teen girl as 'an object of sexual appeal'. We will continue to call on SHEIN to put girls' safety before profit. Read more here.
Big Tech
We have continued to document and report widespread sexualisation and exploitation of children on mainstream social media platforms including Instagram and Twitter. We are calling on corporates to put children's safety before profit to stop this activity on their platforms. Our investigations and campaign efforts were highlighted in national media earlier this year. Read more here.
We have highlighted the dangers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) poses to children as it shields perpetrators of child sexual exploitation and abuse from detection. We have documented our concerns about (Facebook/Instagram parent company) Meta's proposal to rollout E2EE across all of its messaging services in a number of Australian and global submissions. See here and here for examples.
Bring Big Tech to account for harms to kids - MTR opening statement to social media inquiry
Playboy's corporate paedophilia
We have called out youth retailers including City Beach, Empire Skate and Glue Store for promoting Playboy-branded clothing and other merchandise to teens. We pointed out that it was deeply unethical and sinister for adults who are aware of what the Playboy brand represents to sell merchandise emblazoned with the Playboy logo to children, particularly girls, who do not know what the brand symbolises or that they are being used as unwitting props for the global pornography industry. Read more here. We exposed Playboy's dark history of sexually exploiting young girls - read more here. We are calling on shareholders invested in parent company PLBY Group to divest from this corporate pimp, pornographer and predator. Read more here.
Honey Birdette + shopping centre landlords
We recently called out shopping centre owner Lendlease for hosting children's school holiday activities just metres from Playboy-owned sex store Honey Birdette's porn and bondage themed shop windows. Read more here. We will continue to call on Honey Birdette's landlords - Westfield, Lendlease, Stockland and others - to stop hosting Honey Birdette's porn style advertisements in their family friendly shopping centres. Read more here.
Age Verification
Last year we welcomed the Federal Government’s announcement that it supported the development of a roadmap for the roll out of an age verification system to help protect children from exposure to online pornography. The roadmap is due for completion by the end of the year.
MTR on 4BC - No barriers between kids + hardcore content: We need age verification now
Look out for more National Child Protection Week content this week on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
See also
National Child Protection Week 2021: Join our campaigns to protect children and young people
A predator’s playground: Keeping Kids Safe On-line
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