Children at risk from predators on government website

Schoolchildren are running the risk of exposure to predators though a website run by the federal Department of Education and Training.

In what must be a cruel twist of irony, the starting point for this is none other than the Safe Schools Hub, which is intended to protect children from bullying and other forms of harm.

Although the Safe Schools Hub has as one of its "Guiding Principles" that schools must "accept responsibility for developing and sustaining safe and supportive learning and teaching communities that also fulfil the school's child protection responsibilities", it is failing to do so itself.

Because it is run by the federal government, the Safe Schools Hub is used as a resource by many primary and secondary schools across the country. The original intention of the site was to prevent bullying in schools, and it attempts to stamp out discrimination on the basis of religion, ethnicity, gender and the like. These are all good things, but when it comes to protecting students, things go badly awry.

Through the Safe Schools Hub, students are given the opportunity to "find out about" homophobia, and coming out. When they click on the relevant page, they are taken to the websites of Youth Central, and the Safe Schools Coalition, as well as an associated site, Minus18, which describes itself as "Australia's largest network for LGBT youth".

Whatever else Minus18 is, it functions as an online dating site. Users register by answering questions such as age, sexual identity, outness, gender, location and preferences, and can search profiles of other members. Users can then connect online.

Carol Ronken of Bravehearts has looked carefully at the Minus18 website and issued the strong warning that "without appropriate oversight and administration, sex offenders can and will exploit these sites to target vulnerable youth".

Given this is a website aimed at teenagers younger than 18, there are no checks to ensure that users are of a similar age. A perusal of the profiles on the site suggests many of the users are aged between 14 and 16.

Among the "young teenagers" making contact on the Minus18 website were some men in their 30s.Credit: Michele Mossop

In spite of Minus18 supposedly having a rule that users over the age of 25 are not permitted to utilise the forums "without direct permission from Minus18" there are literally scores of users older than this on the website.

Minus18 does not enforce its own rules. When this was put to Tim Christadoulou, the Relationships Manager at Minus18, he stated that "rather than actively refuse registrations for certain age groups, we respond to individual profiles and users on a case-by-case basis".

Even this is dubious. Minus18 management was unable to answer how many users were refused registration in the past 12 months. That is particularly disturbing given some of the profiles from men aged 30 and over who seem to have an interest in underage users.

One 30-year-old man said he was looking for "fun fun fun" and described himself as "a man like a tiger nice". I don't know about a tiger, but he certainly seemed predatory. And lest there be any misunderstanding about his intentions, he provided a number of semi-naked photos to make it clear.

Another user was a 31-year-old secondary school teacher from Leichhardt in Sydney who was implausibly looking to network with other schools and youth organisations. One would have thought a simple Google search would have been easier.

And then there was the 36-year-old man from Birmingham, Alabama, who registered last month and was "into guys". I cannot imagine what reason a 36-year-old man from the United States would have joining a website full of teenagers in Australia, but it can't be a good one. Whatever it is, though, he helpfully provided a Facebook page and phone number.

This exposes another problem with Minus18. By creating fields which allow users to communicate outside the website, it becomes impossible for Minus18 to police how people are using the site, as they claim they do. In fact, what it does is facilitate the grooming of minors by paedophiles, be they male, female, gay or lesbian.

Carol Ronken endorses these concerns. She points out that most child sex offenders aren't dirty old men in coats. In fact, she says the average age of offenders is 36, and many start offending in their 20s.

She says that while providing a non-confronting avenue for seeking advice, information and connections with others is valuable, these sites have a responsibility for the protection of young people from predators.

"While it is difficult to stop adults using the site and purporting to be under 18, where there are adults blatantly on the site contacting young people they should be removed," she says.

"Adults should not be contacting young people through these sites."

All this comes from a website that contains what many would consider smut. Minus18 is organising a gay ski weekend, advertising it with photos of semi-naked men. Then there are the frenzied selfies of minors stripped down to their underwear and grabbing their crotches.

If this was a private website, it would be bad enough. But the link to Minus18 comes from what is supposedly a safe website, referred from a federal government site. As a father of school-aged children I am outraged and disgusted.

No child of any sexual orientation should be exposed to this, or the associated risks. I am not the only one disturbed.

In Victoria, where Minus18 is based, Catholic Education Melbourne became worried when links to Youth Central and Minus18 were added to the Safe Schools Hub in 2013. They stated to me that "Catholic Education Melbourne has not promoted the Safe Schools Hub site since then and has never used or promoted any Youth Central website resources".

These matters were put yesterday to federal minister Chris Pyne MP. A spokesman from his office replied that Minus18 was not directly funded by the federal government. He said the Safe Schools Coalition was established by the previous government and was operated by the Foundation for Young Australians.

Images from the Minus18 website.Credit: Minus18

"The Foundation for Young Australians needs to ensure all appropriate measures and protections are in place for young people accessing their website," he said.

"If there is evidence of predatory behaviour on any website then it needs to be reported and investigated by the appropriate authorities.

"Any suspicious behaviour online should be reported to the Australian Federal Police."

That may well be so, but the federal government needs to actively monitor the sites students can access through links from a government website. The overriding obligation in each and every instance should be child safety.

This is not happening at the moment, and vulnerable children are clearly at risk. If the government can't get it right, then the site should come down.

As part of this investigation, all the research material obtained has been given to Taskforce Argos.