Introducing ICMEC Australia
The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) was founded in 1998, in the United States to act as an International NGO with the goal of making the world safer for children. Since then, ICMEC has worked in over 120 countries, providing tools, training and technology to a wide range of stakeholders in government, NGOs, law enforcement, financial institutions and the community to rescue missing and exploited children from harm. ICMEC has offices in Brazil, Singapore, and now the largest office outside the US headquarters in Australia!
Through the work of ICMEC Asia-Pacific General Manager, Bindu Sharma, the organisation has been working in the region since 2009, primarily through the Asia Pacific Financial Coalition Against Child Sexual Exploitation. Now as an independently operating non-profit, we are building on this work and the strong relationships established by the coalition, to provide partnership and data collaboration solutions to professionals in Australia who are working to end child sexual exploitation.
We have begun our important work by establishing a network of people from financial crimes teams, regulators and law enforcement, who work in the fight against CSE, to lean in on key projects that will facilitate partnerships, connections and data collaboration.
With support and funding from Westpac, we are now ready to roll out our roadmap towards our ultimate outcome of removing and relieving children from harm through technology and data collaboration solutions. And, whilst our remit is to work in the Australian region, this is a borderless crime with far reaching global consequences, making our access to global solutions through the wider ICMEC network an essential aspect of our programs.
We recognise that collaboration and partnership are the keys to successful outcomes in removing children from harm. Now that we’re officially launched, we’re looking forward to building on existing relationships and developing new, long-standing partnerships with those committed to detecting, reporting and prosecuting this crime, and ultimately rescuing children from abuse.
