Parents are demanding answers from centre operators after their children were allegedly sexually abused by other children while in child care.
Warning: This story contains details of child sexual abuse.
One father, who described the issue as “the unspoken horror in this industry”, said his son’s abuse was “swept under the rug” by a centre protecting its business.
Matthew — who can’t be identified — still gets emotional when he talks about the day in April this year, his four-year-old son came home from child care with no underwear and blood in his shorts.
“You have so many emotions, anger and sadness and failure,” he told 7.30.
Matthew says child-on-child sexual abuse in child care is “the unspoken horror in this industry”. (ABC News)
The family rushed their son to hospital where doctors confirmed his child had suffered a two-centimetre anal tear from being penetrated.
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The centre informed them the injury had been inflicted by another child, while they were alone, unsupervised.
“We had to pull our kids out immediately because they weren’t safe,” Matthew said.
“We send our kids to a childcare centre and you take this gamble and you make this assumption that they’re going to be safe and they’re going to be okay.”
An incident report filed by an educator at the childcare centre stated:
“I found [the child], I noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt (child 2 ran off), I asked why he wasn’t wearing his shirt, he replied with ‘It’s a secret’… he then disclosed that the other boy touched him on the doodle and bum.”
Reports of child-on-child abuse in child care are on the rise. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)
This family says they have been trying to get answers from the centre for months, which is run by a for-profit operator, about why two four-year-old boys were left unsupervised.
“They want to keep it quiet. They don’t want the noise. They don’t want the problem. They want to protect their business. They want to keep making money. That’s what it’s about,” Matthew said.
“They’ve dropped the ball. They’ve allowed a four-year-old child to be penetrated in their care.
“You’ve got to ask yourself what else is happening?”
Reports from 100 centres
A lack of supervision is a common theme in the reported cases. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)
ABC Investigations has spent months looking into child abuse in child care, drawing on more than 200,000 pages of confidential regulatory files, evidence from parents, educators, whistleblowers and experts. The investigation has found incidents of harmful child-on-child abuse are on the rise.
How can parents protect their kids at childcare centres?
While there’s no national data to track these incidents in childcare centres, regulatory documents in NSW reveal a disturbing reality few parents would ever imagine.
Trawling through the documents we found more than 100 childcare centres have reported 118 incidents of harmful child-on-child sexual abuse, with many more involving harmful physical assaults between children.
Those are just the cases we identified in the documents and that have been reported. We have also spoken to parents around the country who say their children were victims of harmful physical and sexual abuse by other children.
Eighty per cent of the child-on-child cases 7.30 found were in centres run by for-profit providers. A common theme was lack of supervision. In a quarter of these cases the abuse occurred in a bathroom.
The incidents included:
An educator observed two children on the same bed inappropriately touching each other. “One child later disclosed the other child was touching [her] bottom and vagina and inserted a paint brush and a plastic spoon from the toy kitchen into [her] vagina,” the regulatory documents say. “Children were on a bed together and under the sheets without the knowledge of educators.”
Two children “interacted inappropriately with each other in a sexualised manner”. The incidents were not detected by educators at the time and the children were inadequately supervised.
Two children engaged in sexualised behaviour behind a cubby house, whilst not adequately supervised by the educators.
Did not tell the regulator about a suspected sexual assault between children in 2021, which is a breach.
A child told an educator another child had put a finger in their bottom in the bathroom. The nominated supervisor did not notify the regulator until the child’s mother raised concerns, which is a breach.
A child was lured into a toilet and threatened with a knife by a boy who threatened to stab her if she didn’t pull down her pants. According to the regulatory documents the supervisor at the centre deliberately left out serious details of the incident to mislead the parents and regulator.
Other cases include children performing oral sex on the other, a child “sexually touching” another child over months and a child drawing over another child’s bottom and front, then inserting a pen into his anus.
In many cases, the regulator sent a letter to the centre asking them to demonstrate compliance with national laws, given them weeks or months to respond.
UNSW professor of criminology Michael Salter says child-on-child abuse is often not discussed or taken seriously, allowing it to thrive in silence.
Criminology professor Michael Salter says this kind of abuse is often not taken seriously. (Four Corners: Rob Hill)
It sits in a legal vacuum because children involved are below the age of criminal responsibility and so it isn’t a criminal offence.
Professor Salter says that means the solutions or the way authorities deal with it aren’t clear.
“What we’ve seen over the last 20 to 25 years is a substantial increase in child-on-child abuse,” Professor Salter told 7.30.
“Large scale surveys have found that young Australians these days are more at risk of being sexually abused by another child than they are by an adult.
“Lack of supervision, a lack of oversight, a lack of just broad-ranging protections for kids means that child-on-child abuse gets deprioritised.
“It’s not seen as serious. And often then there’s pressure on staff not to escalate concerns around behaviours that they might see as more subtle or less urgent.”
Forensic psychologist Dr Michael Bourke says there’s been a rise in child-on-child abuse globally. (Four Corners: Rob Hill)
Dr Michael Bourke is a leading global forensic and clinical psychologist who specialises in child sexual abuse and paedophile behaviour, says child-on-child abuse is a growing global issue.
“Everyone’s seeing it,” he said.
“I don’t know of a single country where, when I speak to child care or child-protection professionals, they’re not reporting the same thing — it’s happening everywhere.
“We don’t know for sure what the cause of that is, but the easiest link is online, what they’re observing online, and that is affecting how they act.
“The other possibility is that they have experienced abuse and that they’re re-enacting what was done to them.”
He said most children who act out sexually aren’t future offenders but without early intervention, some go on to develop deeper problems.
“We need to distinguish what would be normative sexual experimentation versus what these more egregious acts that we suspect or that the children have seen online or that they’ve experienced. And we can’t be brushing it under the carpet either,” he said.
‘This is very normal’
When police visited Matthew at home they told him that what happened to his son is “very normal”. (Supplied)
Matthew said his family hold no ill will towards the boy who abused his son, but he wanted to warn parents that the police and the childcare centre brushed his concerns off.
He said when he tried to alert other parents at the centre to what had happened, police visited his home.
Footage from the family’s doorbell camera captured their conversation:
Officer: “Relax, relax, relax.”
Matthew: “No one told us how that happened.”
Officer: “We have viewed it now and I’m not going to make you guys sound like you’re over the top. I know that you’re concerned and it’s your son. But this is very normal.”
Matthew: “Having my son with a two-centimetre anal tear is normal?”
The response stunned Matthew.
“This might not be an adult, this is still something that shouldn’t have occurred. And there’s failures that have led to this,” he told 7.30.
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“[To have] everything just swept under the rug and the police come in and tell you nothing and it’s normal … there’s failures everywhere. These are children.
“My wife and I, we hold no ill will towards this other child. This child is innocent and potentially a victim as well. If they’re doing things like this,” he said.
“We just wanted answers.”
Matthew said what happened to his son could never have happened if there was adequate supervision at the centre.
“So the question is what is adequate? And clearly whatever’s required right now, if they were even doing what was required is insufficient,” he said.
‘We felt like we failed her’
This woman says she and her husband feel like they failed their daughter by trusting the childcare centre. (ABC News)
Another family, who can’t be identified, is seeking answers as to how their daughter was left alone with a child who they say sexually assaulted her in the bathroom of a privately-owned childcare centre last month.
“They [the centre] said that educators should not be in the toilet to allow the children to have their privacy,” the child’s mother said.
At home the girl’s father recorded himself asking her what had happened earlier that day:
Dad: “Where did he touch you in the toilet?”
Child: “He touched here and here, and he licked my bum…”
Dad: “Bum only?”
Child: “Licked my bum and doodle.” [private parts].
The girl’s mother said the centre tried to downplay the incident, saying it was just children “exploring their bodies”.
The centre said those allegations had been thoroughly investigated and they had not been substantiated.
The mother said there had been red flags in the boy’s behaviour weeks earlier.
She said her husband had sent an email to the centre on August 25, saying the same boy had threatened his daughter, saying “I’ll stab you with a knife”.
The email also said, “Additionally, I have been informed that the same child has been using highly inappropriate and sexually explicit language, including telling others to ‘suck his dick’. This type of behaviour is extremely concerning and wholly inappropriate in a kindergarten environment”.
“They allowed my daughter and that boy to go to the bathroom at the same time and they never supervised them.
“To be honest, mentally it broke us. We felt like we failed her, trusting the centre and taking her there.”
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