Disturbing number of Australian men attracted to children, according to new report

A landmark report into child sexual abuse has made for sobering reading – as the number of Aussie men attracted to kids is revealed.A landmark report into child sexual abuse has made for sobering reading – suggesting urgent action is needed to address the problem.

The report from the University of NSW (UNSW) and Jesuit Social Services found one-in-six Australian men reported sexual feelings towards children (15.1 per cent) and one-in-10 had actually sexually offended against children.

Two thirds of this offending, the report found, occurred online.

The report shattered entrenched stereotypes around offenders, too.

It found men more likely to offend against children were married, working with children, and earning higher incomes.

They also exhibited anxiety, depression and binge-drinking behaviours.

The anonymous survey featured 1945 Australian men aged between 18 to over 65.

Lead author Associate Professor Michael Salter from UNSW told news.com.au that it affirms what countless survivors have said, “that the men who abused them were well-connected and relatively wealthy, and whose behaviour is secretive and easily overlooked”.

Prof Salter hoped the report would be a “catalyst for change” by highlighting the broader “social and technological pattern that enable abuse”, adding there were “multiple points of leverage” for governments to address, but it was a “question of political will”.Childhood trauma

He said the “sticky question of childhood trauma” remained a significant issue that ensured there was an “intergenerational effect” to offending that was “increasing the pool of men”.

That trauma includes sexual, physical and emotional abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence.

“The clear message to government is we need to protect children from harm but, if they are traumatised, make sure that we provide therapeutic services to boys so that their development is not impacted,” Prof Salter said.

Pornography

Prof Salter said the findings also highlighted the role pornography played in child sexual abuse with levels of online harm reaching “crisis point”.He said 4.2 per cent of men who had offended against children had first seen child sex abuse material when they were teenagers.

Offending men were also consuming violent and deviant pornography, and “this very extreme material was creating a sexual environment in which harm to children is one of many sexual harms that have been normalised”.

He said there was a direct link between pornography and the sexual abuse of children and described age verification as “critical”.

The federal government has rejected a report on age verification of pornography sites, instead tasking the eSafety commissioner to work with the industry to develop a new code of conduct to educate parents on how to access filtering software and limit children’s access to pornography.

Another area that is emerging, Prof Salter said, is of children selling their own images once they realise there is a market.

Social Media

The report also found that men who abuse children are much more active on social media, particularly sites where teenagers congregate, such as Instagram.

Encryptic apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram were popular with these men, where their behaviour is invisible to law enforcement officers.

He described these apps as a “honey pot for child sex offenders” and a serious risk to public safety.

Prof Salter said the Australian regulatory system was a “tough one” but these companies are international and there needs to be political will to deal with online services that are facilitating child abuse.

“There are global debates raging on the need for encrypted services to embed child protection mechanisms,” he said.Prof Salter said the case of a former Queensland childcare worker charged with more than 15,000 offences is the “tip of the iceberg”.

ESafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant described the report as “sobering and distressing”.

“The abuse of children is not an issue that can be relegated as a problem happening ‘over there’. we need to confront the very uncomfortable, awful reality that the sexual abuse of children is happening in our neighbourhoods, communities, our homes – and online,” she told news.com.au.ESafety has commenced public consultation on draft industry standards which will require tech companies to do more to tackle seriously harmful content, including online child sexual abuse material.

She said some of the “world’s biggest technology companies are taking a mixed, sometimes inadequate, approach to preventing the proliferation of child sexual abuse material”.

carla.mascarenhas@news.com.au

Edited by Gay3 - 21 Nov 2023 at 9:29am

Perth man jailed for 'horrific' sexual abuse of daughter who he used as 'currency' in online chat rooms

A Perth father, who recorded himself repeatedly abusing his young daughter and also possessed and shared child abuse material described by a judge as the worst of its kind, has been jailed for more than two decades.

WARNING: This story contains content discussing child sexual abuse that readers may find upsetting.

Key points:

• The man recorded himself repeatedly abusing his young daughter
• The judge described his offending as "horrific" and "graphic"
• The 31-year-old has been jailed for 24 years

The 31-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, pleaded guilty in the District Court to 51 offences.

Those charges included sharing material in online chat rooms that discussed the abuse of infants.

He also shared material about his own abuse of his daughter, which the court was told started when she was three or four years old.

As family members of the young girl watched on, it was revealed the exact details of some of the man's crimes would not be read in open court, because of what Judge Linda Black said were the "horrific", "graphic" and "distressing" nature of them.

Instead, the judge received the detail in written form, telling the man today the material showed "how far from humanity" he had strayed.

The court heard the man's first offences were committed in 2019, when he used his mobile phone to take two inappropriate recordings of a child of a family friend who was aged just seven.

Daughter regarded as 'currency'

Then, in August 2022, the man recorded himself, over a 30-minute period, repeatedly sexually abusing his daughter, who was then aged about four or five.

At the same time the man entered online chat rooms and talked about abusing his daughter when she was a newborn baby.

He sent one person a photo in which his daughter appeared to be holding a piece of paper which contained their chatroom username — something the prosecutor said indicated he regarded the child as "currency".

The offences were uncovered in September 2022, when police searched the man's home and seized his electronic devices.

They were found to contain tens of thousands of images and videos of young children, some of them babies, being abused.

Sexual assault support services:

The man's lawyer said nothing he could say on behalf of his client was intended to minimise the seriousness of what he had done.

He said the primary mitigating factor in the case was the man's early pleas of guilty, which he said showed his client had fully accepted responsibility for what he had done.

When he was first interviewed by police, the man had talked about seeing his daughter again, but the lawyer said he now appreciated he had forfeited the possibility of having any kind of relationship with her.

He said the man's online claims about abusing the girl when she was a newborn appeared to be "bravado" because he maintained he only started offending against her when she was aged about three or four.

Offending on a scale 'never seen before'

Judge Black said while she could only sentence the man for the 51 offences he had been convicted of, it was clear he had abused his daughter on many other occasions.

Want more local WA news?

The judge said the child exploitation material found on the man's devices was in the worst category of its type, adding that she had been unable to find any comparable cases.

"The scale and content of it has never before been seen," she said.

"You used it as a bargaining chip so you had access to other people's daughters."

"You didn't just look, you created it, and sent it out for all the world to see … you caused your daughter harm and also children around the world," Judge Black told the man.

The girl's mother provided a victim impact statement to the court saying since there had been no contact between her daughter and the man, many people had noticed changes in her.

Mother 'full of hope' for child's future

Judge Black paid tribute to the family, saying the mother's statement was "full of hope and optimism."

"[The child] is going to be okay … no thanks to you. Thanks to those around her who love her."

The man was given a 25 per cent discount in his sentence because of his early guilty plea.

But Judge Black said that was the only mitigating factor, saying letters from the man to the court suggested he was yet to fully understand the seriousness of what he had done.

The man was sentenced to 24 years and six months in jail.

He will have to serve 22 years and six months before he can be released.

With time already served he will first be eligible for parole in 2045.

Off to the Mega factory for that scum bag.

[QUOTE=Baghdad Bob]I would not take that initial report as gospel as the sample was taken over 1900 cases, it is hard to extrapolate that amount of predators over the 10 million adult men in Australia.

Who made excuses for them?

Of course one deviant is one too many, but that small sample does skew the result.

I think a males sexual feelings towards a 17 year girl is substantially different to feelings towards say a 10 year old girl

Old geezers perving on young pretty teenagers are like a dog chasing a bus, and wouldnt be able to handle it if he caught it.

always wonder who does all these surveys, and who they ask.  in all my life i have never been ask to take part in a survey.