For the first time, Australia and Indonesia have joined forces in Jakarta for a week of action to combat child sexual exploitation (CSE), a crime that increasingly spans borders, platforms and financial systems.
The initiative brings together Indonesia’s Financial Intelligence Unit, PPATK, and AUSTRAC in a large-scale analytical hub exercise, sharing intelligence on persons of interest to uncover leads and fast-track referrals to law enforcement. New Zealand and Malaysia’s Financial Intelligence Units also supported these efforts.
The week builds on AUSTRAC’s established “weeks of action” model - intensive operational sprints that bring agencies and partners together to pool data, uncover hidden financial patterns, and accelerate disruption of serious criminal activity.
Acting CEO Katie Miller said it marked AUSTRAC’s most significant international collaboration on CSE to date with Indonesia.
“Historically, we’ve worked smaller sets of cases with Indonesia,” Ms Miller said.
“This time, we’re analysing more than 120 persons of interest, giving us a much broader and more meaningful intelligence picture.”
The collaboration reflects the scale and evolving nature of the threat. Data from the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children indicates Indonesia ranks among the highest globally for cases involving child sexual abuse material, and Australia ranks as a top consumer, highlighting the need for coordinated international action.
The week began with a focus on capability-building and establishing a shared understanding of the crime type and methodologies, before shifting to joint analysis of intelligence from Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand
“This is about more than just data sharing. It’s about generating insights, identifying trends, and turning that into real law enforcement outcomes and rescuing children from further harm,” Ms Miller said.
Financial intelligence is central to that effort.
“CSE material creates financial flows from Australia into Indonesia and that’s exactly what we’re working to trace and disrupt.”
The partnership also reflects the increasingly transnational nature of the crime, where offenders, victims and financial transactions often span multiple jurisdictions. Collaboration between Financial Intelligence Units is critical to closing those gaps and building a more complete intelligence picture.
During the week, partners also shared emerging trends in offending behaviour, including the use of cryptocurrency, AI-generated material and online coercion of minors, highlighting how the threat is continuing to evolve alongside technology.
AUSTRAC’s Child Sexual Exploitation Response Team (CSERT) worked alongside partners throughout the week, bringing specialist expertise in analysing financial intelligence and identifying high-risk activity. The CSERT team work collaboratively with the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).
The work will continue well beyond the week of action, with intelligence and referrals generated expected to drive ongoing law enforcement activity.
“This is just the starting point,” Ms Miller said.
“The insights we generate here will continue to support disruption efforts well beyond this week.”
This week of action will help inform similar targeted efforts in high-risk jurisdictions impacting our region and beyond, building on the momentum of this collaboration and strengthening regional capability to respond to child sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
The week of action is jointly funded by the Attorney-General’s Department under the Indo-Pacific Child Protection Program under Australia’s National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2020-2031.