Alliance Working Groups
Working Groups and Achievements
prevention research
A research working group was established to identify, evaluate, improve and disseminate the best prevention policies and practices for child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) internationally.
Together, this group created a $20 million academic global prevention research proposal for a 15-year initiative and helped to raise awareness of the importance of prevention research in tackling child sexual abuse.
Global Foundational Research on Harms to Children in the Digital World
This research group was created with a broader focus that aimed to utilise Professor Ernesto Caffo’s wide academic network to survey current research being conducted on child sexual abuse and exploitation, to identify gaps in the foundational understanding of where, why, how and when child sexual abuse and exploitation occurs and to fill these gaps in knowledge the dissemination of new research.
Leveraging a network of international academics, the group created a volume of ground-breaking scientific articles on various aspects of the OCSE problem and worked on a book contract with publisher Springer.
Building Global Awareness
A communications working group was created to raise global awareness of CSEA and its impact through a focused and multifaceted PR strategy.
London PR firm Harvard kindly volunteered their time to help mobilise global awareness of our efforts to right online child sexual exploitation, building more social media engagement and connecting with key technology media to boost visibility of milestones from the key working groups.
Building a Multi-Faith Coalition to Protect Children in the Digital World
This group aimed call to action religious leaders from all faiths at all levels, to raise their awareness of the prevalence and severity of CSEA internationally, using their moral influence within their communities to safeguard children from abuse and exploitation.
The group mobilised the United Arab Emirates government to hold the first ever Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities. Hosted in Abu Dhabi in November 2018, the event provided a groundbreaking introduction to OCSE for many of the world’s religious leaders and secured a commitment from seven of the world’s most senior religious leaders to tackle this issue within their communities and institutions.
Protecting Children from Internet Pornography
This working group aimed to use of the momentum of the now-postponed UK Age Verification Law to create comprehensive age verification laws in every country in the world.
Led by Alliance chair Ernie Allen, the group advocated and mobilised a policy network to replicate the UK’s age verification law internationally, engaging key government officials and NGOs in Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa, Sweden and Poland, securing their support to lobby for legislative replication once the impact of the UK age verification law has been observed.
Technology and Its Impact Upon Children
A combined research and “lobbyist” group was established to identify online and technology harms to children, use technological innovation to offset these abuses, and persuade tech companies to invest in these solutions, whilst promoting a ‘safety by design’ approach for startups and new products of established tech companies.
Led by Australian Government eSafety Commissioner and tech-industry veteran Julie Inman Grant, this group published a groundbreaking technical paper in November 2018 highlighting the scope of the online child sexual abuse and exploitation problem and outlining 16 key recommendations to foster greater cooperation between government, law enforcement and the tech industry. A first-of-its kind inventory of technologies was also launched to tackle the problem.
