The ‘Stop Sex Trafficking of Children & Young People’ campaign is currently in its third year of promoting greater community awareness on the issue of child sex trafficking and child sex tourism.

During last year’s campaign over a quarter of a million Australians signed a petition that was tabled in March 2011 in the House of Representatives by Adam Bandt, the Federal Member for Melbourne. Child Wise and our partner, The Body Shop, are still working hard to ensure the hundred’s of thousands Australian’s who signed the petition have their voices heard.

The two asks of the petition include the implementation of an education campaign for the Australian community on how to report suspicions or concerns about child sex offenders who travel overseas to exploit children sexually; and support from the Australian Government to fund international community-based campaigns and projects that work towards eliminating the supply and demand for child sex tourism.

Although this petition is one of the largest in Australia’s history, Kevin Rudd (Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Brendan O’Connor (Minister for Home Affairs) have both ignored the petition and its requests.

While we have had amazing support from The Body Shop (please see the Campaign Successes page) over the past three years, the Government continues to pursue programs that focus on law enforcement and strengthening the criminal justice system. It cannot be denied that Australia has some of the most comprehensive child sexual abuse laws in the world; however, current policy falls short at preventing the abuse from actually occurring.

Please see below the ‘Stop Trafficking of Children & Young People’ Campaign Timeline for an outline of our correspondence with the Australian Federal Government and our advocacy efforts over the past three years.

Click on the bubbles below for more information on each event on the timeline.

CAMPAIGN ADVOCACY TIMELINE

For more details about the events on the timeline,  check out our campaign resources page.