We built a playground for perpetrators: Here’s how to stop them

Yet more allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia’s early childhood education and care services have surfaced. ABC’s Four Corners investigative journalists, led by Adele Ferguson, uncovered more shocking allegations after previous charges were laid against several educators. While we all want these stories to go away (because that would mean our children are safe), nobody wants them to disappear more than the perpetrators. That’s because child abuse thrives in environments where people are naïve, secrets are kept, and ignorance and neglect are built into our systems. ABC’s Four Corners team discovered that the rate of abuse in early education is increasing. In the last 10 years, almost 150 educators were convicted, charged, or had accusations levelled against them for inappropriate conduct or child sexual abuse. Forty-two people have been convicted, with half of those in the last five years. Another 14 are involved in current court cases. How did we get here? We have an early learning system that costs taxpayers $22 billion a year. So, how have we built a system that is a fertile playground for perpetrators, where three reports of child abuse occurs each working day?