Abuse 'routine' in bush schoolrooms

A CRIMINOLOGY professor has played down his claims that a teacher had given students sticks to ward off sexual abuse.

A CRIMINOLOGY professor has played down his claims to a Queensland inquiry that a teacher had given students sticks to ward off sexual abuse in school toilets, saying the example was "an illustration" of issues affecting communities across Australia.

Stephen Smallbone told The Australian yesterday that abuse allegations within remote communities were not new, with revelations from inquiries from many states and territories spanning the past decade.

"I was using one community as an illustration -- a pointed illustration -- of a number of points," he said, declining to specify the community or school.

"I may well have created the impression I was talking about one problem community but I was using one as an illustration to raise issues that are certainly not confined to one place."

This week Queensland's child protection inquiry is examining the sexual and mental health of children who have been in care.

Professor Smallbone told the hearing on Monday there was an alarming level of violence, and sexual violence, in some communities.

"We're aware of evidence that sexual abuse is occurring in the school quite routinely, including in the classroom," he told the hearing.

"We know of cases where a teacher issued sticks to children when they went to the toilet so that they could protect themselves from other children who were going into the toilet to abuse them."

Education Department officials are seeking more information about the allegation.

Assistant Director-General Craig Allen said the department encouraged anyone with information to come forward.

"The department takes any incidence of harm to children in its care extremely seriously and would fully investigate any that are brought to its attention," he said.

Yesterday Professor Smallbone said the examples he had raised spanned the past 10 years.

"The lesson from the past is that existing approaches seem not to have worked very well," he said.

"What seems to be therefore needed is an approach with the prevention of these problems at the centre so we don't have these children who need to be removed and we don't have these adolescent and adult men who need to be arrested."