This week we launched the findings of the largest, nationally representative child sexual abuse perpetration survey ever undertaken in Australia or globally. We anonymously surveyed almost 2,000 Australian men about their sexual feelings and behaviours towards children. The findings were alarming and sent shock waves around Australia and the world.
We found that men who abuse children are, on average, doing relatively well, from a superficial point of view: often married, good income, strong friendships and family networks. Even more concerning, we found that men who abuse children were more likely to work with children than men who don’t. This was a difficult finding because we don’t want to stigmatise men in child-focused careers – we need more of them! I’m a man and I’ve dedicated my career to children. But we also need to keep kids safe.
Child protection sometimes feels like grappling with smoke: trying to deal with threats that we know exist but cannot always identify clearly. This challenge calls for a kind of “rational paranoia”, walking a fine line between managing risk without going overboard. That fantastic teacher at school who has started offering one-on-one tutoring sessions to students after school? He might be a truly gifted and dedicated educator. It might also be worth checking in with the principal about school policy and safeguarding.
When I give talks about online safety, I show a picture of a public playground from the early 20th century. I don’t say a word as the audience scrutinises the photo and, invariably, within 20 seconds they start to laugh. The playground is a vast metal jungle, with children shimmying up metal poles 10 feet in the air, swinging from monkey bars perilously high above the ground and kicking their legs on swings as another child rides a bike directly into them. The playground is built for kids, looks very fun, and it is incredibly dangerous. At the time, nobody had thought to make rules about the construction of safe playgrounds.
That is the internet right now. Three-quarters of the abuse perpetration that we documented in our survey was happening online. Online services and products are being marketed to children with very few protections for them and child abusers know all the loopholes. That’s the reality that we need to introduce children to, and build a shared understanding of an online environment that is fun but is absent the kinds of safeguards that we’ve come to expect. When we talk about online safety with children, we need to be realistic with them.
The protective impulse of some parents is to go into “lockdown” mode. If their child is never out of sight, if there is total scrutiny of their online activities, then the risk of abuse is minimised. The problem with this approach, particularly as children get older, is that it can communicate a lack of trust to the point of damaging the relationship between parents and children. I’ve interviewed teenagers whose parents, in the interest of safety, constricted their lives to the point where the teen resented them deeply and began to keep secrets from them, which is a recipe for disaster.
We need to actively build a trusting and open relationship with children, one where they know for certain that we are on their team. A cornerstone of this relationship is a willingness among adults to revisit some of our attitudes and prejudices. I know of a case where a teenaged girl whose nude images were circulated online was called a “slut” by her parents once they were informed. A same-sex attracted boy who has been manipulated by men online may have good reason to be afraid of telling his parents that he’s gay. Children are afraid of speaking up for a reason, and we need to assure them ahead of time that we are in their corner if something goes wrong.
Too often, abused children are blamed, shamed, silenced or ignored. This is what esteemed trauma psychologist Prof Jennifer Freyd called “betrayal trauma”: the damage that is done when children are betrayed by the people they depend on the most after they disclose abuse. However, when the child’s family responds by enfolding them within a caring and protective response, then we know that those kids do really well.
My work always returns me to this one simple equation, which is that children need love to flourish. It helps to protect them from abuse and, when abuse happens, despite everyone’s best efforts, it’s love that heals them. Sometimes, love is the only thing that we have to offer, but the good news is that its exactly what children need.
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Dr Michael Salter is the Professor of Criminology at the School of Social Sciences at UNSW and an expert in child sexual exploitation and gendered violence
