In fact, it’s growing. Rapidly.
For Australians, that reality came into sharp focus last month.
In the entire history of the nation, no one had ever been imprisoned for child sex trafficking.
Then, on July 3, Surya Subekti was sentenced to six years and five months for luring a 17-year-old girl from Indonesia and forcing her into sexual slavery in Australian brothels.
Her case emerged from a sweeping police investigation that uncovered a trafficking operation spanning 20 brothels across Sydney and the Central Coast.
“Before coming to Australia, I was like any other kid. I was happy and never experienced trauma before.”
To customers and coworkers, the bespectacled, balding Subekti was simply a mild-mannered, middle-aged Krispy Kreme doughnut shop manager.
Behind that façade, however, using the code name “Batman,” he led a trafficking network—procuring and transporting young women into sexual servitude, then returning home to his day job peddling doughnuts.
The girl at the center of the case was recruited in Jakarta with promises of legitimate work. Instead, investigators say, she was brought to Australia and forced into sexual slavery.
Subekti arranged fraudulent visa documents and traveled with an older woman who falsely claimed to be the teenager’s mother, allowing them to pass through immigration without arousing suspicion.
Once in Australia, the girl’s passport was confiscated. For the next 53 days, she was forced to “work” 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, receiving none of the money she earned.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided a Sydney home in 2024, where the girl was found with 10 other women.
The investigation quickly expanded beyond Australia. In Indonesia, police arrested a recruiter who had multiple passports ready for additional women destined for Australia. By the time the operation ended, authorities had rescued seven victims in Australia and Indonesia.
It was a lucrative enterprise. One accomplice, Elton Valentino, who drove the girl between three brothels each day where she was sexually exploited, earned $50,000 a year for handling the operation’s logistics. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
The abuse left her physically and psychologically devastated.
After she suffered severe stomach pain, blood loss and difficulty walking, she was hospitalized and diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection.
“I always had someone following my movements. I felt as though I was being monitored and controlled all the time,” she said.
“I worked long hours, and the type of work was a shock to my body.
“Before coming to Australia, I was like any other kid. I was happy and never experienced trauma before. It is now difficult to trust other people.… I can no longer feel what it is like to be happy.”
Operation Mirani, launched in 2022, ultimately resulted in 22 human trafficking assessments and seven victims rescued from sexual slavery.
The operation united the AFP, Australian Border Force and the Indonesian National Police in a cross-border effort to dismantle the trafficking ring.
Both traffickers ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges.
“These guilty pleas are testament to the courage of the victims and the persistence of investigators who worked relentlessly to uncover the full extent of the criminal enterprise,” AFP Commander Brett James said.
For Australia, the case marked a historic first. Worldwide, it underscored a far larger crisis.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that more than 125,000 people—including some 30,000 children—have been officially identified as trafficking victims worldwide, while acknowledging the true number is almost certainly far higher.
“Millions of children on the move face heightened risks of exploitation and trafficking, yet they remain too often invisible in global policies and protection systems,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said that child sex trafficking reports exploded from 5,976 to 62,891 between 2024 and 2025.
“These statistics are not just numbers—they represent children experiencing unthinkable harm,” said John Shehan, senior vice president of the organization’s Exploited Children Division.
Behind those staggering numbers are cases like this one: a teenager deceived, transported across borders and forced into sexual slavery.
In Australia, one trafficking ring was dismantled and the nation’s first child sex trafficking conviction secured.
But for every network exposed, others remain in the shadows, searching for new victims.
This is a war against the world’s children—and it’s one we cannot afford to lose.
