National Research Finds Australian Businesses Aren’t Prioritising Child Safeguarding
- Research by On Us: Australian Business Coalition for Safeguarding Children, finds more than half (54%) of Australian businesses don’t have child safeguarding protocols in place.
- Only 1-in-4 businesses ranked child safeguarding within their top five business priorities.
- To safeguard children, Westpac, TikTok, IHG Hotels & Resorts, TBWA\Australia, the Y and The GPT Group unite with the Australian Childhood Foundation to establish a cross-sector coalition, On Us.
November 2023: On Us: Australian Business Coalition for Safeguarding Children, an initiative of Australian Childhood Foundation, has released new research demonstrating a major knowledge gap among business decision-makers and leaders, with 65% of businesses believing that child exploitation could not occur within their industry. Yet, in Australia, child abuse or neglect is reported by a child every two minutes[1], with harm extending well beyond the home.
Speaking to 500 Australian business leaders, the findings are compounded when looking at individual industries. Three-quarters of leaders in banking and finance (76%) and technology, engineering and design (75%) believe there is no potential for child exploitation to occur within their business or industry. Compared to those working in automotive and manufacturing (58%), medical and healthcare sectors (55%), or retail, entertainment, tourism, hospitality, and transport (59%).
As a result, the study found that less than half of business leaders have policies in place that protect children when engaging with their businesses’ goods or services. Especially those not directly working with children, who are often unaware of the harms they can enable.
All businesses can inadvertently enable harm to children, with perpetrators using products, services and infrastructure to access children. The prevalence of child abuse enabled by business is fast-growing and expansive across industries.
Regardless of industry, all businesses can put children in harm’s way, for example; technology and data protection, retailers and public spaces or financial services and the ethical tracking of funds.
In response, On Us: Australian Business Coalition for Safeguarding Children was established in recognition that whilst there have been significant steps in making community sector organisations safer for children, businesses have lagged behind.
Across all industries, just 27% of businesses ranked child safeguarding within their top three business priorities, with workplace safety (71%), mental health and wellbeing (69%) and cyber security (67%) categorised higher by business leaders.
However, despite this knowledge gap, close to three-quarters (73%) of Australian business leaders say they would be willing to invest in providing resources and staff education to safeguard children within their businesses.
The On Us coalition will work collaboratively with members to undertake responsible business conduct assessments in relation to children and young people, develop tools, policies and practices, and share resources to help enhance organisational child safeguarding within their businesses.
On Us Chair and Australian Childhood Foundation CEO, Dr. Joe Tucci, says “This research further demonstrates that businesses need to be more aware about how their services, products, assets and resources can be used to inadvertently facilitate abuse, exploitation, or harm to children. As leaders, it is on us to be better equipped and prepared to take action to make businesses safer for all our children and young people.”
On Us: Australian Business Coalition for Safeguarding Children will officially launch 22 November 2023. In collaboration with the Y, the coalition’s founding members include industry leaders Westpac, TikTok, The GPT Group, IHG Hotels & Resorts and TBWA\Australia.
The On Us coalition invites expressions of interest from all businesses and organisations that want to learn more.
About the research
- This study was conducted online between 24 October and 1 November 2023.
- The sample comprised 518 Australian business owners and decision makers aged 18+ who work in the private sector, including n=137 from small businesses (1-19 employees), n=177 from medium-sized businesses (20-199 employees), and n=204 from large-sized businesses (200+ employees).
- In this report, this audience will be referred to as ‘business leaders’ for brevity.
- The findings in this report are unweighted.
[1] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023
