Protecting boys from sexploitation - why the eSafety regulator isn’t interested

Here was this outstanding achiever making her big sales pitch to the heavy hitters, boasting how much her organisation was already contributing to their vital work. For instance, e-Safety claims on their website that they run "evidence-based education programmes" but, as Inman Grant explained, what that means is training for domestic violence support workers: "Through our eSafety Women program, we have successfully trained thousands of frontline, specialist and support staff in the domestic violence sector."

The lobbying has already achieved funding in the last budget of $16.6 million over four years to establish a new telephone service to provide support for women and children experiencing technology facilitated abuse – which you might have assumed would include male victims of sextortion, but let's not hold our breath. Laws introduced last year to protect people from extreme online abuse were aimed solely at women and girls, and planned programs to increase teen's skills in online safety and digital literacy also will exclude males.

It is clearly not on Inman Grant's agenda to advertise the fact that her own organisation has discovered that one of the most prevalent forms of technology-based abuse is sexual extortion of males. After all, this woman was first appointed to her job by the Turnbull government, with Minister Michaelia Cash announcing that "this is about empowering women to take control online."

Just as the domestic violence industry does a skilled job denying women's role in family violence by misrepresenting statistics and denying research, eSafety strenuously avoids the evidence that would muddy Inman Grant's claim that TFA targets mainly women. Such as:

· Studies in USA, Norway and Australia have proven that men are more likely than women to be victims of online harassment.

· Men and women are equally likely to be victims of image based abuse according to the Australian Gendered Violence and Abuse Research Alliance – a result confirmed by American research.

· Half of misogynistic tweets are made by women.

· Online bullying happens to teens equally – both boys and girls.

The truth is that like girls, boys are being publicly shamed through ex-partners sharing their intimate photos. They too receive unflattering comments online about their bodies and appearance and find themselves the butt of online jokes about their sexual prowess. We all know about the mean girls who once dominated school playgrounds. These girls now bully and humiliate other youngsters in the online spaces which now dominate teenager's social lives.

Given that there's barely a mention of male victims on the eSafety website, there's no way this mob will be promoting this excellent resource set up by the Federal police to help vulnerable kids, mainly boys aged 13-17, learn about sexploitation, showing exactly how the scammers operate and how to deal with it, including making reports to the relevant authorities.

If you are a parent or grandparent with teenagers in your family, you should get your kids, particularly the boys, to read it through and tell their friends about it. It's the isolation and feelings of shame experienced by boys being targeted by these vicious scammers that puts them so at risk. It's a pity the organisation charged with protecting them has clearly turned its back on them.