AUSTRALIA
WA Today
April 12, 2015
Kate Nancarrow
The shocking evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has made some parents hyper-vigilant about protecting their children. But what right do parents have to complain about people who have done nothing?
Every week in the Australian media – sadly, sometimes more frequently – there is a report of alleged sexual abuse of children in Victorian schools, with some cases dating back 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years.
Some allegations and charges, however, relate to more recent events – from a time when everyone who works or helps in schools has a Working With Children clearance.
Parents who might once have been ignorant about the prevalence and planned predatory behaviour of abusers can no longer be as naive as their parents or grandparents were.
But what the submissions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse have made clear, as have all the court cases of teachers, school workers and clerics, is that up until the point when child sex abusers are charged – often decades after their offending began – most have no criminal record and nothing that would necessarily trigger an alert in a Working With Children check.
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