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Speaker 1: We love the Victorian Police. Every couple of weeks we

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Speaker 1: get in different areas of the cops to chat about

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Speaker 1: I'll be honest, this one, I think is going to

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Speaker 1: scare the hell out of me and a lot of

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Speaker 1: parents out there.

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Speaker 2: It's frightening, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: Detective Senior Constable Kelly Mrvin is joining as she is

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Speaker 1: from the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team. Good morning, kel

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Speaker 1: good morning.

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Speaker 3: How are you?

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Speaker 2: Good morning?

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Speaker 1: We are good. So can you explain in layman's terms

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Speaker 1: what you do at the police.

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Speaker 4: So I'm in a team that we work alongside as

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Speaker 4: Strain Fred Police and we target online child predators pretty

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Speaker 4: much is the basis of what we do.

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Speaker 1: So you pose as kids chatting online to try and

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Speaker 1: catch out predators.

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Speaker 4: My role in the office is to do that, but

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Speaker 4: we have a lot of other roles in the office

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Speaker 4: as well. We have a few investigation teams, we have

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Speaker 4: a victim Identification team and then our COVID online team

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Speaker 4: as well.

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Speaker 2: Is this something that is a huge issue in Australia.

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Speaker 5: I feel like this is the kind of thing we

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Speaker 5: see in movies and we see online or hear about.

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Speaker 2: Is it common in Australia?

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Speaker 4: I think that's one of the problems is that people

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Speaker 4: see any of this stuff happening with children. In relation

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Speaker 4: to child abust material online, it's something that happens overseas.

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Speaker 4: It has to children that are in poorer countries and

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Speaker 4: that kind of thing, But it is happening in Melbourne.

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Speaker 4: It's happening in Australia, and we're unfortunately a very very

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Speaker 4: busy office targeting this kind of offending all the time.

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Speaker 2: So tell me, is this.

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Speaker 5: Like people sending around images of children? Is it you know,

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Speaker 5: we're hearing so much about AI of people's faces being

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Speaker 5: used on things, or is it actually people trying to

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Speaker 5: meet up grooming underage children and grooming them.

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Speaker 3: So there's a whole gamut of that.

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Speaker 4: Exactly everything you've said happens, and our investigation teams will

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Speaker 4: look into the sharing of child abust material online.

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Speaker 3: That's some of the stuff that we do.

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Speaker 1: Can I ask, because we're living in a world of

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Speaker 1: deep fake and AI, if you're sharing photos of children

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Speaker 1: and their AI images, are they treated as real photos.

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Speaker 3: Any the legislation?

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Speaker 4: Is it anything that depicts a child or is a

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Speaker 4: child or depicts a child is child to be material

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Speaker 4: under the law.

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Speaker 2: Well that's probably fair enough too.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, my team in particularly work with the grooming

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Speaker 4: of children online.

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Speaker 2: What's a heavy job.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So also, sextortion is a massive one.

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Speaker 2: Extortion.

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Speaker 1: So is this you explained?

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Speaker 4: So sextortion is in Layman's terms, pretty much people that

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Speaker 4: are using threatened coercion to get children to send newd

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Speaker 4: images or sexual images of themselves.

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Speaker 6: And is that often for their own gratification or to

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Speaker 6: be black republished or used as you know as blackmail.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, again, it covers all ranges or ranges of that.

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Speaker 4: So there's definitely people that are using it to try

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Speaker 4: and get the children to send more images of themselves.

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Speaker 4: So once they get one, then they'll say, okay, I've

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Speaker 4: got that now. Now if you don't send me more,

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Speaker 4: I'm to send them to your mum or your school

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Speaker 4: or post them on your social media.

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Speaker 6: So recently we've seen some changes in this space socially

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Speaker 6: with the ban on kids using social media under sixteen.

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Speaker 1: The government or federal government would sprut that.

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Speaker 6: We're seeing countries from other parts of the world adopt

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Speaker 6: similar sort of principles. Is it having an impact, Is

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Speaker 6: it reducing some of the threat that is posed online?

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Speaker 4: I think that what the government's brought in is a

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Speaker 4: really good step to acknowledging what's happening to children online,

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Speaker 4: and it's trying to minimize the risk. I don't know

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Speaker 4: that it's not going to stop the risk. I think

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Speaker 4: that at the end of the day, children being online

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Speaker 4: or on social media isn't the risk.

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Speaker 3: Predators being online? Yeah, is the risk. So while they're there.

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Speaker 4: And able to access these platforms, the risk is always

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Speaker 4: going to be there.

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Speaker 1: It's just going to As a data three, I'm terrified.

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Speaker 5: I have the Internet is scary for especially young people,

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Speaker 5: like I'm so glad we didn't grow up in an

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Speaker 5: era where we had all of these, you know, all

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Speaker 5: these tools to be able to communicate with strangers.

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Speaker 1: Is it one piece of advice you would have right now?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really hard question because I think parents

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Speaker 4: and I understand why they want a one stop answer.

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Speaker 4: They want to be able to say, how do I

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Speaker 4: fix this? We say do this and it's done. But

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Speaker 4: it's not as simple as that, unfortunately, and it requires

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Speaker 4: really proactive parenting, and you can't you can't passively. You

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Speaker 4: can't passively parent in relation to this, So having really

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Speaker 4: good relationships with your children where you're going to talk

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Speaker 4: about things. You're going to talk about sex, you're going

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Speaker 4: to talk about what can happen online, so that the

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Speaker 4: children can feel when someone sends a photo of a

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Speaker 4: penis to them, they can come out to you and say, hey,

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Speaker 4: I just got this online.

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Speaker 2: They're not scared they're going to get in trouble because at.

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Speaker 4: The end of the day, they're not in trouble. They've

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Speaker 4: done nothing wrong. It's someone that's done that to them.

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Speaker 4: So really having that relationship with your children, it's the

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Speaker 4: smartest thing to do to protect them.

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Speaker 3: And you can do all kinds of things.

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Speaker 4: Like I had a job where a teacher was posing

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Speaker 4: as a fourteen year old girl online. It was yeah,

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Speaker 4: and he was posing as a girl online and interacting

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Speaker 4: with his previous students that he taught in primary school,

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Speaker 4: a lot of those and he was getting them. He

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Speaker 4: sent intimate images of a girl to them, pretending to

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Speaker 4: be this girl to get them to send videos of

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Speaker 4: themselves bainfoitters of themselves back, which which they did with

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Speaker 4: their faces in them and like really easily identifiable. A

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Speaker 4: lot of those parents had really good rules in place

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Speaker 4: with their children, like one that was, you know, no

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Speaker 4: phones in bedrooms, and he was still able to infiltrate that.

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Speaker 4: So there's no there's no permanent fix.

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Speaker 1: You're right, that relationship seems to be yeah, number one thing.

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Speaker 3: And I know that's not that's not a great answer

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Speaker 3: for people.

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Speaker 6: No reassuring, but I guess what is reassuring is you

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Speaker 6: are prosecuting, right, we are prosecuting more and which it

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Speaker 6: sounds scary, but the good news is your job it's

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Speaker 6: starting to work.

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Speaker 1: It's starting to bear fruit.

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Speaker 3: It is.

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Speaker 4: And the other good thing about our work is even

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Speaker 4: things like this where we're getting more media interests and

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Speaker 4: things are in the paper. It's stopping the stigma for

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Speaker 4: kids that it's about them because it's not about them.

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Speaker 4: And the more that's out there, the more people can

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Speaker 4: talk about it and kids can feel safe and know

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Speaker 4: that we're going to do something about it when it happens.

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Speaker 5: And Kelly, where is it happening? Is it on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?

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Speaker 5: Is it like chat Roulette whatever it was that everyone

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Speaker 5: was on back in the day.

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Speaker 2: Where is this happening?

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Speaker 3: There's a lot happening on Snapchat.

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Speaker 2: Snapchat's bad. It's like it's dark places.

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Speaker 4: It is, and it's just really easy for someone to

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Speaker 4: send a picture right to children on that and because

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Speaker 4: offenders think it's into fible that they can get away

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Speaker 4: with it, but they can't.

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Speaker 3: They can't always. But there's.

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Speaker 5: A really discord TikTok things like discord like a lot

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Speaker 5: of parents and adults like I don't have children, but

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Speaker 5: I don't understand it.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how that works, right, I don't get

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Speaker 2: that world.

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Speaker 5: So how can I possibly protect my child from something

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Speaker 5: that I don't understand.

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Speaker 1: I walked in the other days. We've got a PlayStation

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Speaker 1: fire at Christmas, right, and Felix is playing basketball online

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Speaker 1: and I walk in to the office and I'm know

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Speaker 1: who you channing to? And he's it's just people online

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Speaker 1: around the world.

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Speaker 2: That changes the microphones.

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Speaker 1: The remotess got a mic in it as a speaker on.

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Speaker 5: Mike, which is such a shame because we have this

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Speaker 5: technology which is actually amazing.

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Speaker 1: There's so many access points.

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Speaker 5: That's the And I suppose the other thing is for kids,

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Speaker 5: it can be really hard talking to your parents because

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Speaker 5: you do think you're going to get in trouble. But

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Speaker 5: I suppose it's important that if there are kids or

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Speaker 5: young people listening to this that you can reach out

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Speaker 5: to other adults for help as well. If you're scared

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Speaker 5: that you've done something that your parents might tell you

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Speaker 5: off about.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 3: We sometimes say to kids, name five people that you

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Speaker 3: can talk to.

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Speaker 4: So we want them to be able to name teacher,

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Speaker 4: a teacher, an auntie and uncle that they can talk

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Speaker 4: to if something goes wrong and they can't go to

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Speaker 4: their parents, but.

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Speaker 2: Also the Victorian police as well.

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Speaker 5: Right, if kids are frightened or have been sent something

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Speaker 5: inappropriate and they think they might get in trouble or

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Speaker 5: get someone else in trouble, Victoria Police are really approachable

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Speaker 5: and that's what you're there for.

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Speaker 4: We are and we hope that that's what kids realize

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Speaker 4: is that everyone wants to catch a pedophile. Right, So

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Speaker 4: if you're going to if someone's done this to you online,

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Speaker 4: any police officer wants to go catch that person, So

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Speaker 4: you need to tell. But you need to tell someone

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Speaker 4: for us to do something about it. We're proactively working

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Speaker 4: every day, so in the covert space we target people,

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Speaker 4: but we're also proactively targeting people.

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Speaker 5: And Kelly, how does it go for you as a

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Speaker 5: police officer in this job because you must carry a

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Speaker 5: really heavy burden knowing what's going on, and there must

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Speaker 5: be times where you just want to go and kill someone.

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Speaker 2: I know that sounds terrible, but you would.

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Speaker 5: You're dealing with some of the worst people in our society.

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Speaker 4: I think for me, I've been in this field for

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Speaker 4: twelve years, a jacket for twelve years, and before that

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Speaker 4: I was at sex crimes. Before my policing career, I

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Speaker 4: worked in child protection, so I've always wanted to protect children.

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Speaker 4: So for me, I get by with knowing that it's happening,

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Speaker 4: but I'm doing something, yeah, something about it.

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Speaker 1: So you're doing amazing well.

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't work anywhere else, thank you. Yeah, I wouldn't

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Speaker 3: work anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: And you know, whate incredible job.

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Speaker 1: And to the scumbags that would be out there doing

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Speaker 1: this sort of stuff that'd be listening you know what

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Speaker 1: you'll be I hope you bloody get caught because your

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Speaker 1: chances are you going to be chatting with people like

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Speaker 1: Kelly and the cops and they will find you.

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Speaker 2: You will get caught.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. Detective Seenior Constable Kelly Mervin joining us on the

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Speaker 1: issues from the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team. Yeah on

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Speaker 1: behalf of all parents. Thank you Kelly for the work

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Speaker 1: you guys do.

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Speaker 3: You're welcome