Victoria Police podcasts on sexual crimes
BY SAT News Desk
Melbourne, 4 September: Victoria Police has launched the first episode of a new six-part podcast to help improve the community’s understanding of sexual crime as part of National Child Protection Week.
With a new episode released weekly, the podcast series titled Unspeakable: Understanding Sexual Crime challenges preconceived ideas of sexual offending through interviews with victims, their loved ones and the Victoria Police detectives who managed their investigations.
While the latest statistics showed that more than 3000 children were victims of sexual offences last year, Family Violence Assistant Commissioner Dean McWhirter said sexual violence is often under-reported.
“Sexual offences and child abuse are often poorly understood, which has a negative impact on the willingness of victims to come forward and seek help,” AC McWhirter said.
“Through this podcast series, I hope we can encourage more victims to report to police, let them know the support available to them around the process, and to challenge some common myths and misconceptions about sexual offences and child abuse.”
Each episode explores a key theme – reporting, investigating, victim reactions, offender behaviour, online grooming and future directions.
All episodes feature a victim-survivor of child sexual abuse or a family member who has bravely shared their story.
AC McWhirter said Victoria Police has a come a long way in its responses to sexual offences and child abuse over the past 10 years.
“Through the establishment of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Teams (SOCIT), Multidisciplinary Centres and the whole story investigative framework, we now provide a specialist, victim-centric response,” AC McWhirter said.
“The podcasts highlight the important and challenging work our passionate SOCIT members do to support victims every day.
“The bringing together of a victim, detective and specialist voices in this podcast series is very powerful as it demonstrates our commitment to providing a response to sexual offences and child abuse that is evidence based and victim focused.”
The free episodes will be released weekly on SoundCloud and iTunes. Make sure you subscribe so you get notified each time a new podcast is available.
In addition to the podcast, Victoria Police will be sharing a range of information to help increase the community’s awareness of child sexual abuse throughout National Child Protection Week.
PODCAST Episode-1
Source: Victoria Police
