The issue
Many commercial businesses have not considered how their operations and activities can affect the safety of children and young people. No business is immune to the risks, nor can they afford to turn a blind eye. Recognising the risk is the first step to mitigating it.
Take action
It's on you to take the first step
Don’t become a statistic. Join the On Us coalition.
Some disturbing statistics​
- One child is reported abused or neglected every two minutes in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023)
- Child abuse related offences grew by 310% across Australia in 2019-20 (Australian Federal Police, 2021)
- Australia is one of the largest and fastest growing markets for child sexual abuse materials in the world, growing by 129% in 2019-20 (WeProtect Global Alliance, 2021)
- Almost 3 in 10 (28.5%) Australians over the age of 16 years have suffered sexual abuse when they were children. That equates to approximately 4.5 million individuals living today who have carried that experience with them for their whole adult life. Even more shocking is the reality that when child sexual abuse occurs, it rarely happens only once, with almost 2.5 million adults experiencing sexual abuse more than six times as children (Australian Child Maltreatment Study, 2023)
- Horrifically, a significant proportion of living Australians experienced more than one type of abuse concurrently as children. 4.8million individuals have endured between three and five types of abuse at the same time during their childhood (Australian Child Maltreatment Study, 2023)
- Despite being an urgent and growing issue in Australia, 65% of Australian businesses believe there is no potential for child exploitation to occur within their own business or industry, making them blind to the harms that their products, services, people and operations could enable (YouGov ACF Child Exploitation, 2023)
How child safe is your business?
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acknowledgement of country and abuse victims
The On Us: Australian Business Coalition for Safeguarding Children acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land and waters across Australia in which we share. We honour and pay our respects to Elders past and present and acknowledge the many thousands of years in which First Nations’ peoples have raised their children to be safe and strong. We also acknowledge the spirit and courage of victims and survivors of childhood abuse, exploitation and violence. Their efforts over many years have inspired our commitment to make changes at every level to better protect the children of today.