‘They are sadists’: How abusers are using the dark web to infiltrate childcare centres

10 hours ago 2

Childcare centres are magnets for paedophiles who take advantage of staff shortages, high turnover rates and lax regulation to access and abuse children, and a NSW upper house inquiry into the early childhood education sector has warned more full-time quality staff are needed to keep children safe.

New documents, tabled during a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s besieged childcare sector, have revealed some of Australia’s biggest childcare providers rely on casual staff to keep centres open – creating opportunities for predators to slip through the cracks.

More than 17 per cent of workers at one of Australia’s biggest childcare providers – G8 Education – are casual, while 12 per cent of employees at Affinity are on casual contracts.

Some of Australia’s biggest childcare providers rely on casual staff to keep centres open, documents reveal.

The revelations come after an ABC Four Corners investigation revealed paedophiles are using the dark web to share information about how to infiltrate childcare centres to abuse babies and toddlers, without being caught, often by taking up casual roles.

Criminology Professor Michael Salter, said predators on the dark web encouraged paedophiles to target childcare centres. “Daycare is the perfect storm; you have an extremely vulnerable group of children who are pre-verbal or barely verbal and a lack of regulation and oversight.”

He said predators used the dark web to provide “very detailed step-by-step instructions, too graphic to publish” on how to get a job at a centre, gain the trust of parents and employers, and then abuse children.

“It’s hard to talk publicly about what we see on the dark web. It is forensic advice on how to evade detection. How to find your ways around boundaries in place,” Salter said.

“Somebody can maintain ongoing employment casually in the daycare sector, floating from centre to centre abusing children. The lack of staffing, not enough people on the floor, gives lots of opportunities to abuse these kids without detection.

“It’s advice on how to evade detection if there is a forensic examination of a child. They see children and babies in an instrumental way. With infant abusers, they are straightforward sadists.”

He said there has been an increase in child abuse material filmed in Australian childcare centres.

“We have very large communities of sex offenders in encrypted services on the dark web strategising on the how to abuse kids. This is the infiltration of organised crime groups into the early childcare sector. It’s exactly as alarming as it sounds.”

A majority of abuse cases occur at for-profit centres, which can have a revolving door of staff, said Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, who has been chairing an inquiry into NSW childcare centres. She said predators would “centre-shop”, moving from centre to centre until they found “the right conditions to facilitate their abuse”.

“The number one thing they are looking for is inadequate staffing levels so they won’t get caught,” Boyd said.

“The most terrible instances of abuse cannot occur in a situation where there are other educators around ... abuse can be avoided by co-workers having the opportunity to identify concerning behaviours and red flags by having a relationship with their fellow educators rather than having a daily wave of casual workers.”

In a statement, G8 Education said the “safety, wellbeing, and development of the children in our care is our number one priority” and it had made progress in attracting and retaining quality staff. It said team retention rates had improved and vacancy rates were better than the sector average.

Michele Carnegie, chief executive of peak body Community Early Learning Australia, told a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday more quality staff were needed to keep children safe.

“We know it is the people around children that keep them safe. A stable, skilled and valued workforce is the single most important safeguard against harm to children,” Carnegie said.

“We can’t regulate our way out of this … we have to have enough good, strong capable staff working around children, and we have to have enough of them working around children, so perpetrators of these terrible crimes do not have the opportunity to be able to act in early education and care environments.”

Enmore Early Learning Centre director Tanya Barton said: “I know in my heart, ratios are the core to quality.

“We are setting children, educators, families and community up for failure.”

NSW Department of Education secretary Murat Dizdar conceded “we need to get the staffing right in all services”.

“Services must have the right type of staff and the right number of staff to provide parents with the confidence that their children will be safe,” he said. He committed to having an independent regulator established by the end of the year.

The inquiry will hand down its findings in a report next year.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.