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Child sex abuse
hysteria and the Ellis case |
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I applaud and welcome the common
sense shown by the Primary Teachers Union in reversing its earlier policy of
not comforting or touching children in their care. The earlier policy stemmed from
public hysteria driven by deliberate misinformation about sexual abuse and by
the debacle of the Peter Ellis convictions. It is simply not true that
"a paedophile lurks behind every bush", or that "one in four
girls will be sexually abused". Those, and similar exaggerations,
have caused untold grief in our society and resulted in large numbers of
false allegations. An outcome is a desperate shortage of men in early
childhood and primary teaching roles. Children need both men and women to
guide and teach them. The case against Ellis was just as
silly as the earlier no-touch policy, yet unlike our teachers, politicians
and the judiciary seem incapable of correcting their mistakes. In the
meantime, ACC continues to pay out millions of taxpayer dollars to thousands
of claimants and hundreds of counsellors, in the absence of credible evidence
of sexual abuse. |
