Policy response to organised abuse in Australia and internationally: A critical review.
This presentation will discuss emerging responses to organised abuse in Australia and overseas, identifying areas of strength as well as ongoing gaps and controversies. The internet has leant unprecedented visibility to child sexual exploitation, to the point where government and law enforcement agencies see the problem as primarily a technological one. However, most online abuse images and videos were created through face-to-face abuse, with survivors disclosing family-based and community networks of abusers who remain largely invisible in policy frameworks. The presentation will highlight positive developments, including increased recognition of the dissociative disorders and expanded government interest in sexual exploitation, and identify ongoing challenges, including ritual
abuse and transgenerationally abusive families.
Scientia Associate Professor Michael Salter is a criminologist at the University of New South Wales, where he studies the criminological aspects of complex trauma, including the intersections of technology with abuse, violence and exploitation. He is the author of two books, Organised Sexual Abuse (Routledge, 2013) and Crime, Justice and Social Media (Routledge, 2017), and a range of papers on child abuse, gendered violence and technology. He conducts multi-method research with victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation, domestic violence and sexual assault and conducts multi-sectorial policy analysis with the aim of improving responses to survivors and preventing violence and abuse. He sits on the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and he is an expert advisor to the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. He is an associate editor of Child Abuse Review and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation.
Dr Michael Salter
Scientia Associate Professor of Criminology, Postgraduate Coordinator, School of Social Sciences, 125 Morven Brown, UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA
Finding a new narrative: Meaningful responses to ‚false memory‘ disinformation
Organised child sexual abuse in the media
Child sexual abuse [Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology]