‘It stops with me’: West’s vow to protect Aussie kids from abusers

Actor, author and activist Madeleine West is determined to shield her seven children from abuse. She is now considering these questions on raising her seventh child.

Madeleine West was pregnant with her seventh child last year when she began to wonder how she could stop them from growing up like she did – plagued by years of childhood sexual abuse.

The former Neighbours and Underbelly star, 45, knew she was going to be a single mum this time round, unlike with her older children, and started asking herself questions she’d never considered.

“It was like, who will I let change my child’s nappy? Who am I comfortable with babysitting my child or holding my child if I need to take a phone call or, you know, need to have a shower?” she told this masthead.

Madeleine West. Picture Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

West was sexually assaulted between the ages of four and 10, sometimes daily.

She has worked for a number of years with Project Paradigm, an organisation working to end child exploitation, and is now the ambassador for a new initiative, It’s Never Too Early To Talk.

The campaign is supported by Australian Federal Police and involves placing handbooks at health clinics, community centres, and hospitals that plies parents and carers with information about how to stop child abuse before it happens.

“Changing a baby’s nappy is so intimate, and yet how many of us have gone, ‘oh yeah, thank you,’ and handed baby over if someone’s offered to do it?” she asked.

“In those early months of parenthood, you’re so exhausted, and the delirium is real, that bone-deep exhaustion is real, and we’re so grateful for anyone who lends a hand, without the rationale that we should when it comes to best practice for protecting our kids.”

She said new parents are vulnerable because they’re often tired and overwhelmed, and young children are an easy target for pedophiles because they can’t fight back and they can’t disclose their assault.

In 2023, the Australian Child Maltreatment Study reported that one in three girls and one in five boys in Australia have experienced child sexual abuse before the age of 18.

Despite the disturbing statistics, research by the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse in 2024 found more than half Australian adults do not think child sexual abuse happens in their own community, and most don’t know how to keep children safe from sexual abuse.

“Not only do I know what it feels like and what it looks like to experience abuse, but I’m now looking at the innocent faces of my children and I’m determined that it stops with me.

Madeleine West, pictured at Hyde Park in Sydney. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

This will never happen to them. And by extension, this should never happen to any child,” West said.

While she knows that she was too young to defend herself at the time, she’s also painfully aware that her abuser’s actions defined her life and sparked eating disorders, perfectionism to the point where it was harmful, and dissociation that resulted in lost friendships.

“I’m now working hard to become the person that I was meant to be,” she said.

“Yes, I want to leave a legacy and I now have, but I’m in the trenches trying to protect everyone’s children, and the best way to do that is through information and education, and that is precisely what this resource offers.”

Madeleine West has welcomed her seventh child.

Conrad Townson, the principal adviser on child sexual exploitation at Project Paradigm, said parents of abused children often tell him they had no idea they needed to worry about sexual assault.

He said: “Our aim is to educate parents at the earliest possible moment in their child’s life, especially during that time period when they are preparing to become a parent, when they are most likely to take on board information that is about the welfare of their new baby.”