The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the ability of frontline professionals to deal with online child sexual exploitation, according to a new report.

The UNSW Sydney report found there was an increase in reports relating to child exploitation during the pandemic.

UNSW Associate Professor of Criminology Dr Michael Salter told Deborah Knight the pandemic affected the ability to investigate these reports.

“Child protection workers were no longer able to do the sorts of investigations they might want to do.

“Police were no longer, in some cases, able to carry out the sorts of investigations they needed to do.”

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