In Australia, one in five boys and one in three girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. One in ten men has a history of offending against children, with the most common perpetrator being a caregiver in the home.
In 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse outlined steps towards addressing this crisis, including the establishment of national support services for non-offending family members of child sex offenders and an early intervention service for those with sexual interest or behaviour towards children.
Last week, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) released a damning report outlining how the Attorney-General's Department has failed to deliver these two critical services due to significantly flawed procurement processes.
According to Grace Tame, 2021 Australian of the Year and Director of the Grace Tame Foundation, this eight year delay has dire and far reaching consequences.
'This delay is more than just government inefficiency, it represents blatant disregard for something that should be seen as an urgent national priority. An unknown but guaranteed number of children have suffered otherwise preventable sexual abuse as a result and that is completely unacceptable.'
ANAO audit contributor and Director of the Childlight East Asia and Pacific Hub at UNSW, Professor Michael Salter, says people with a sexual interest in children need options to stop them before they offend.
'The moment someone takes a step towards offending, they leave behind a trail of destruction that includes not just their victims but their own devastated partners and children as well. It might not be a topic that the government can promote on glossy public brochures, but the need for robust, specialised child sexual abuse intervention and prevention services could not be more apparent.'
Rachel Green, CEO of mental health service provider SANE Australia says it beggars belief that the development of such important new services has been delayed by such fundamental departures from government policy around procurement, quality standards and wider policy aims for a less fragmented experience for help-seekers.
'Despite the government blaming the 'complexity' of the services for the delay, lived experience-led service models tailored to this population already exist and have been proven to work. It's horrific to think that kids and families have been unnecessarily harmed because these kind of decisions are being made by procurement consultants instead of experts in the field.'
Madeleine Clifford, Executive Officer of the National Association for Services Against Sexual Violence urges all responsible Ministers to heed the ANAO findings.
'We hold grave concerns about future procurement of sexual violence services, whereby the significant expertise amongst specialist services is overlooked in favour of contracts to standalone private or for-profit providers on the basis of financial size alone.'
'We urge all Ministers with responsibility for initiatives relating to sexual violence to heed the ANAO's findings, meet procurement responsibilities, and ensure children and adults affected by sexual violence and child sexual abuse receive expert support from specialist services.'
