One of my greatest fears as a parent is around the topic of child sexual abuse. As parents, we do everything we can do to protect our children in every space. It’s shocking to think that we have now come to a place where parents not only have to be on guard against their child being abused in this way, but they also have to be on guard against their child abusing other children in this way. This article in the Daily Telegraph highlights the tragic rise in the rate of child on child sex crimes.
1 in 4 child sex offenders are children themselves
To sit with parents who have come to the realisation that their child is the perpetrator of these kinds of acts may possibly be the hardest thing that my wife and I have had to do. In a society where pornography is so prevalent, this is sadly our new reality. Our children deserve the right to ignorance of this space, they deserve the right to a world where they and those around them wouldn’t be sexualised. For this reason, I believe parents must be mindful of the kind of access their children have to the internet when they are young. We need to protect them from the things that aren’t appropriate for them to see and we need to guide them in what behaviour are appropriate for them to do! It is critical that our children’s understanding of sex, dating and relationships come from the information that parents provide and not from the world of online pornography.
“If a child has unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet, it provides opportunity for an offender to groom them for the purposes of contact offences or to obtain child pornography.” NSW Police Child Abuse Squad Commander Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans
Family Zone is a great way for every parent to be able to easily protect their children as they grow up.
