Children are every society’s future and are rightly considered precious.
They are this generation’s successors. Their welfare determines the future well-being of the society in which they will take part as fully-fledged adults.
Childhood experiences can produce loving, self-reliant, conscientious adults.
On the other hand, bad childhood experiences can develop adults who don’t trust, are unloving and suspicious without a sense of self-worth. They seek to defy authority and often find themselves consumed in a vortex of self-destruction and anti-social behaviour. These outcomes are then passed down the generations.
When it comes to bad childhood experiences impacting innocent lives, there is hardly anything worse than child sex abuse.
This is why Australians were repelled and horrified to learn that a childcare worker had committed sexual offences, including rape, over 1,600 times with more than 90 victims across 10 childcare centres throughout Queensland and New South Wales.
This revolting spree is alleged to have taken place over many years and was only discovered because of the tenacity and perseverance of a special police task force investigating depraved sites on the dark web. Society owes a large debt of gratitude to those that devote their professional life to exposing such curses.
The understandable, albeit knee-jerk reaction to any horrific incident is to seek further government regulation. But this is usually not an answer and is seen by most fair-minded people as overkill but nevertheless implemented so the government or minister is seen as taking “decisive action.”
In the reported circumstances, however, the idea of a national register of those who have been convicted of relevant offences against children may well offer some protection, given the alleged perpetrator offended in a number of jurisdictions, including overseas.
The bigger problem is that even if such a register were in place, it would not have stopped the heinous offending that allegedly occurred in this case, as the alleged perpetrator had not been caught let alone convicted of any offence.
Not ‘Over the Top’ in This Case
The proposed national register, while offering some protection, is nearly akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.Nevertheless, it would be a positive step in offering some protection for children.
The real and pressing task is to prevent such behaviours in the first place. That, sadly, is easier said than done.
The criminal mind, of its very nature, works in devious ways, which suggest requirements of continual CCTV monitoring in all areas or two childcare workers being present together at all times with the attendant costs in a sector with pricing issues.
Careful vetting and profiling of would-be childcare workers may also be necessary with rigorous testing.
Given the propensity of men to offend in this regard, there may be suggestions to ensure male workers are not left unaccompanied in the presence of children.
Controversial? Possibly.
Which begs the question of which is more important—“non-discrimination” or “child protection?”
It is vital that child protection trumps other considerations.
Given children are our community’s most precious asset, they are worth protecting. Today, much risk management is so tied up with red tape and restrictions that it becomes zero tolerance or risk avoidance.
In most cases where such an approach is taken, it is rightly decried as “over the top.”
As the saying goes, “It is the exception that proves the rule.” And when it comes to child abuse, zero tolerance has to be the approach adopted.
Window dressing with a national register of offenders won’t stop these acts from being perpetrated in the first place. It is to the task of stopping criminal abuse before it is undertaken to which our governments must turn their attention. Nothing less will do.
Our children deserve to be protected from monster predators who prey upon our future society for their own sick self-gratification.
The total response of all governments will be the real test as to how seriously the protection of our young and vulnerable is taken.
