Western Australian police have identified 15 children considered at risk of harm and laid 79 charges as investigators intensify their fight against online child sexual exploitation, with cases increasingly stretching across state borders and around the world.

The results have been highlighted during National Child Protection Week, which runs from September 6 to 12 and this year carries the message “Every conversation matters” alongside a push to turn awareness into practical action.

For specialist detectives, that action increasingly takes place far beyond Western Australia.

Online grooming, the exchange of child abuse material and attempts to arrange sexual contact can involve an alleged offender in one jurisdiction, a child in another and digital evidence stored or transmitted through services operating overseas.

That reality has made cooperation between WA Police, the Australian Federal Police, interstate investigators and international agencies a central part of modern child exploitation investigations.

Police say the priority is not simply identifying people allegedly accessing illegal material, but finding children who may be experiencing abuse or remain at risk of further exploitation.

The 15 children identified through the WA investigations underline that distinction.

Child abuse material is not treated by investigators as an abstract category of prohibited online content. Every genuine image or video records the abuse or exploitation of a child, and further distribution can perpetuate that harm long after the original offending occurred.

The Australian Federal Police deliberately uses the term “child abuse material” rather than “child pornography”, saying the latter language can wrongly imply consent or legitimacy where neither exists.

Recent cases demonstrate how quickly an investigation originating in WA can cross borders.

Northern Territory Police revealed this week that intelligence supplied by WA Police led investigators to a 60-year-old man in Fannie Bay, Darwin.

Police allege the man used a video-chat platform to engage in sexual activity online with a child aged under 16.

On August 31, members of the Northern Territory Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team, Northern Territory Police and the AFP, assisted by Australian Border Force officers, executed a search warrant at the Fannie Bay residence.

Electronic devices were seized and allegedly contained evidence supporting the victim’s account.

The man was charged with accessing child abuse material, using a carriage service for sexual activity with a person under 16 and using a carriage service to groom a person under 16.

Those allegations have not been tested in court.

The investigation provides a clear example of why jurisdictional boundaries offer little protection to people suspected of targeting children online.

A child or investigator can be in Western Australia while an alleged offender is thousands of kilometres away. Once information is identified, police can refer intelligence to the appropriate specialist team and continue cooperating as digital evidence is collected.

Northern Territory Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Cronin said online offenders should understand that their activity leaves a digital trail and that police agencies work together to follow it.

He also stressed that viewing or sharing abusive material causes continuing harm because the files depict real children who have been exploited.

The same cross-border model extends internationally.

Earlier this year, an investigation involving a 53-year-old Albany man led Australian authorities to share intelligence with police in the Philippines.

The Western Australian man came to the attention of authorities after Australian Border Force officers examined his electronic devices when he returned to Perth Airport from the Philippines in March.

Investigators allege child abuse material was located on his phone along with communications involving a person in the Philippines suspected of helping facilitate access to children.

The man was charged with Commonwealth child abuse-related offences, including allegations that he engaged in conduct intended to procure a child aged under 16 for sexual activity outside Australia.

The charges remain allegations before the courts.

Australian authorities passed intelligence from the investigation to the Philippine National Police. Six children in the Philippines were subsequently located and removed from circumstances in which police believed they were at risk of exploitation.

AFP investigators said at the time that the outcome demonstrated why international law-enforcement partnerships were critical to protecting children when offending crossed national borders.

The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, led by the AFP, sits at the centre of much of that national and international cooperation.

The ACCCE receives and assesses reports relating to online child sexual exploitation and supports specialist Joint Anti Child Exploitation Teams across Australia.

Those JACET teams combine AFP investigators with state and territory police, allowing Commonwealth offences, local criminal laws and intelligence from overseas partners to be dealt with as part of a coordinated response.

Specialist capabilities include victim identification, intelligence analysis, covert investigations and technical work aimed at linking online activity to real people and locations.

The scale of that task is enormous.

INTERPOL said this week that its International Child Sexual Exploitation database had helped identify more than 65,000 child victims worldwide since the database was launched in 2011.

Almost 5,800 children had been identified through the system in 2026 alone by the end of July, according to the international policing organisation.

The database allows investigators in participating countries to compare visual clues in seized abuse material, including locations, objects and other details that may help identify a victim or offender.

Cases that begin with what appears to be one file on one electronic device can therefore lead to victims or suspects in multiple jurisdictions.

Financial intelligence is also becoming an increasingly important part of the response.

AUSTRAC said during National Child Protection Week that transactions reported by banks, remittance businesses and cryptocurrency exchanges could contain clues connecting people to child sexual exploitation networks.

Cryptocurrency does not necessarily provide the anonymity offenders may expect.

In another investigation announced in the Northern Territory this week, intelligence from the AFP-led ACCCE concerning suspicious cryptocurrency transactions led to an investigation of a 75-year-old man from Gunn.

Police allege electronic devices linked to online child abuse offending were found during a search of his home on September 1. He was charged with offences relating to accessing prohibited material.

A separate NT investigation began after the United States National Center for Missing and Exploited Children referred information about a user allegedly uploading child abuse material. Devices were seized from a Humpty Doo property and that inquiry remains ongoing.

Together, the cases show an investigative chain that can begin with a child making a disclosure, a technology company filing a report, a suspicious payment being identified, a border officer inspecting a device or an overseas police agency sending intelligence to Australia.

For parents and carers, authorities say prevention remains as important as enforcement.

Online exploitation does not always begin with an obviously threatening message.

Offenders can use gaming services, social media, messaging applications and other platforms to establish contact with children, sometimes pretending to be younger than they are or presenting themselves as a friend.

Grooming can involve gradually building trust before shifting conversations towards sexual topics, requesting images, encouraging secrecy or attempting to move a child onto a more private communication platform.

Another major risk is sexual extortion, commonly known as sextortion.

In those cases an offender may persuade or deceive a young person into providing an intimate image and then threaten to distribute it unless the victim provides money, additional material or complies with other demands.

Law-enforcement and child-safety agencies warn young people not to pay an offender or continue complying with demands, because doing so does not guarantee the threats will stop.

Parents are instead encouraged to preserve evidence where safe to do so, block further contact and report suspected exploitation.

The eSafety Commissioner is using National Child Protection Week to run programs aimed at improving awareness among schools, educators and professionals working with young people.

This year’s campaign focuses on moving from simply discussing child safety to taking practical steps to reduce risk.

That includes ensuring children know there is a trusted adult they can approach without fearing punishment if something goes wrong online.

Police and child-safety experts have repeatedly warned that shame can work in an offender’s favour. A young person who believes they will lose access to their phone, be blamed for sending an image or get into trouble for talking to a stranger may be less likely to tell an adult when they are being threatened.

Open conversations about online behaviour can therefore become an important protective measure.

The WA Government’s Department of Communities says concerns about a child’s safety or wellbeing can be reported through its child-protection services, while immediate threats should be reported to police on Triple Zero.

Suspected online child sexual exploitation can also be reported nationally through the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation.

The current enforcement results show why such reports matter.

A single disclosure or piece of intelligence can expose alleged offending in another Australian jurisdiction. A device examined at Perth Airport can generate information that helps locate children overseas. A financial transaction or technology-company report can give investigators the first link in a chain that eventually identifies a child who needs protection.

National Child Protection Week lasts seven days, but specialist investigators work on those cases year-round.

The technology used by offenders continues to change, as do the platforms through which children communicate, but the basic policing objective remains the same: identify the person behind the screen, locate children who may be in danger and intervene before further harm occurs.

For the 15 children identified in the latest Western Australian investigations, that victim-focused work is the most important measure of the operation — beyond the number of devices seized or charges laid.