I propose adopting the recommendations of 'Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviour and attitudes among Australian men' report by UNSW in order to keep children safe from harm.
Nothing frightens parents more than the fear that their child could coming to harm. Children in daycare centres, schools or in the care of any adult need to feel safe but we're not doing enough in Australia to protect children from harm because we don't understand enough about why people are driven to abuse. The statistics on child sex abuse are alarming: one in five Australian men reported sexual feelings towards children and/or have sexually offended against children. It shows we aren't doing enough to understand what drives child sexual abuse and detect early warning signs. Leading researcher Michael Salter has undertaken a large scale study Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviour and attitudes among Australian men, measures the prevalence of risk behaviours and attitudes regarding child sexual offending among a representative sample of 1,945 Australian men aged 18 to over 65.
The report provides a new approach for measuring and tracking this issue and includes information that can bolster the service responses and attitudinal changes that help keep children safe from harm. This is where governments should be investing more resources, to prevent these heinous crimes before they are inflicted on innocent young children.
The recommendations from the report include:
Improving community understandings of the harm of child sexual abuse and challenging attitudes that support child sexual abuse.
Building safety into online romance and dating sites to reduce offender access to single parents.
Safeguarding of children in environments that may be deemed particularly risky, including schools, day-care, social groups, clubs and any other activity in which children are present.
Early intervention services for men with sexual feelings towards children who have not offended, and undetected offenders who want help to stop harming children, such as Stop It Now!.
Supporting family and friends to identify problematic behaviours.
The capacity for child protection, law enforcement and the criminal justice system to better target a cohort of men who are a chronic risk to children but are adaptive in their efforts to avoid detection and prosecution.
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