Do we live in an Age of Paedophilia, or, is it, just, a case of greater scrutiny bringing it to light? Childrens’ entertainers like Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile have highlighted the betrayal of trust that can occur in this realm. So, childrens’ entertainers and carers: who checks them out? The Blue Card system is run in Queensland as a checking and prevention scheme to reduce sexual offenders from working around children. There are other similar schemes in states around Australia. These involve police checks on potential candidates for jobs involving contact with kids.
Keeping Our Kiddies Safe
There are, also, lists of registered sex offenders provided by the various state governments around the country. In addition, a new initiative by the federal government in the 2019/20 budget is a national register of sex offenders to be managed by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. Of course, you can, also, investigate people via their social media profiles. The digital era offers enhanced record keeping facilities for doing searches on things like this, which is a valuable commodity for parents and concerned citizens everywhere. Childrens’ entertainers and carers must be properly scrutinised to keep our kids safe from people like this. There are, of course, quality people who run school-holiday programs.
The Nature of Paedophilia
Innocence seems to be a honeypot for predators of this type, whether they be in the church, a charity worker, a teacher, a police officer, a bus driver, a sport’s coach, or someone else who comes into contact with kids. What makes an adult want to penetrate a child and abuse them sexually? The obvious answer is that they were abused themselves as kids by paedophiles. Is it, however, always a cyclical phenomenon? Firstly, not all child sex offenders are categorised as paedophiles. The real evidence tells us that some sexual offenders abuse a child opportunistically, rather than as a result of a long-held obsession. Conversely there are true paedophiles (those who are intensely and consistently attracted to children) who never act on their urges. The official paedophile tag refers to those attracted to prepubescent children, with those attracted to pubescent children classified as hebephiles.
Recent studies of child sexual offenders, highlighting those who were abused themselves as children, puts that figure at around 30%. However, these figures are not considered to be without doubt, as they involve self-reporting. Experts do not ascribe a direct causal basis and the victimiser-as-victim hypothesis, rather they see a correlation between perpetration of child sexual abuse later in life and experience as victim.