There are calls for men to be banned from working in childcare centres after allegations of sexual assault and child rape were levelled at ex-sector employee Joshua Brown in Melbourne.
Brown has been charged with 70 offences and the case remains before the courts, while health authorities have urged the parents of 1200 children who may have been in care centres where Brown was employed, to have them tested for infectious disease.
Police said Brown worked at 20 childcare centres over a number of years, though the charges relate to eight alleged victims at a single centre.
Louise Edmonds, founder of the Independent Collective of Survivors, said banning men from the childcare sector was an “extreme” position, but that the safety of children, many of them too young to speak, should be the priority.
“Without, you know, staining all the good men who are in there wanting to be positive role models for the young boys who are in daycare centres, there are some measures that can be taken place,” Edmonds told Today.
“We actually have to look at the safety first and foremost of our most vulnerable citizens, which are our children, and a lot of them are voiceless.”
Edmonds said the vast majority of child sex offenders were men. A study published by the Australian Institute of Criminology found that women made up just 1.7 per cent of child sex offenders, though the author cautioned the figures may be unreliable due to such offending often going unreported.
Edmonds said there could be measures put in place “overnight” in daycare centres to help protect children, including an intimate care waiver.
“All daycare centres can literally say to the parent, do you opt in or do you opt out at this very moment to actually have a male carer look after your child?” Edmonds said.
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She also advocated for the use of cameras to cover “blind spots”.
“It takes seconds to abuse a child. I’m sorry to say that, but this is the reality,” she said.
“But what we can do with the CCTV, it is linked to a third party child protection agency. It is a deterrent if you put it into the areas that are blind spots, like the sleeping quarters, the change tables and the toilets, and it is off-site.”
Edmonds suggested another option would be for men working in childcare to be moved out of “intimate areas”, while still interacting with the children in the play and outside areas.
“So it’s not removing them entirely, but it’s also safeguarding them to make sure that they’re all not thrown out with the bathwater,” she said.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
