With good reason, the Catholic church has been roundly pilloried for its past culture of covering up abuse within its ranks and silencing victims. But they’re not the only guilty institution — not by a long shot.
So, why have education bureaucracies so far escaped the sort of public opprobrium that has indelibly stained the churches or the Scouts? Because, as we’re learning, education is too often the meat market at the top of the sexual predator food chain. Of course, any institution dealing with children is clearly a target for the rockspiders: it’s how they deal with them that damns them.
Education departments are not just as bad as the Church in years past — they may well be worse. The same patterns of behaviour are being laid bare: denialism, punishment of victims, and endless, endless cover-up.
A single mother whose daughter was allegedly sexually abused by an older boy on school grounds was offered a year-long family pass to a zoo by the school.
The abuse is alleged to have happened last year in a school building and in the family’s driveway, and was occasionally witnessed by the woman’s son.
Both the daughter and the son have intellectual disabilities.
Elaine — whose real name cannot be used to protect the children involved — said the response from the Education Department since the alleged abuse was disclosed earlier this year had left her in “absolute disbelief”.
Sadly, I’m not as surprised. Just as it is in the nature of predators to seek out institutions that give them access to children, it’s also in the nature of institutions and bureaucrats to lie and try to bury bad news.
Elaine’s daughter, who the ABC will call Rose, disclosed the alleged abuse in July this year, telling her mum it happened over several months when she was seven.
Elaine contacted the school, police and family paediatrician, and waited about 10 days to hear from an Education Department representative.
She said police told her the boy’s parents were refusing to allow him to be interviewed, meaning the case was unlikely to proceed.
Within a month, the boy returned to school, while her children were placed in online learning and offered a pass to ZooDoo.
As we’ve seen in the US, school boards are deliberately covering up abuse, especially by boys claiming to be “transgender”. Don’t be deceived that the same thing isn’t happening here, too.
“It’s automatic damage control … I was warned the Department of Education’s go-to tactic was to gaslight, but I’ve been in absolute disbelief.”
A review into sexual abuse in public schools, commissioned by the state government and released earlier this year, found student-on-student abuse was “significantly more prevalent” than adult-on-student abuse […]
An Education Department spokeswoman said the department took reports of alleged sexual assault “extremely seriously”, and had a range of supports available for students, families and school communities.
ABC Australia
Yeah, thanks for the copy-and-paste response. No doubt rigorously focus-grouped by a crisis management team for just such an emergency.
If only they put as much energy into protecting kids as they do their reputations.
