‘Most unsafe place for a child is home’: Australian advocate’s shocking message for the world

A woman checks on her granddaughter at night to find the 13-year-old has been joined in bed by her stepfather. Horrified, the grandmother’s pleas to child protective services are brushed aside and when the case is closed she is labelled vexatious. Four months later, the young rape victim gives birth.

In another case, a Family Court judge allows a man supervised weekend visits with his 11-year-old daughter after being convicted of abusing her and two cousins; the benefit of a “loving relationship” outweighs the risk she will be abused again. A separate judge orders the installation of locks on bathroom and bedroom doors to protect two daughters from their father; the girls wished for no contact as he had raped them.

Professor S. Caroline Taylor has been a leading advocate for victims of child sexual abuse.Credit: Simon Schluter

These are among the Australian examples Professor S. Caroline Taylor carries with her after 20 years advocating for survivors of child sexual abuse and intrafamilial rape. Taylor is more than a “repository of other people’s atrocities”, as she once described it; she is an academic who has helped inform how authorities in Australia and internationally respond to a crime “we never seem to be able to address”.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics survey showed 1.1 million women and 343,500 men had experienced sexual abuse before the age of 15. In 47 per cent of cases for girls, the perpetrator was a family member. Overall, 84 per cent never reported abuse to police. And only 18 per cent of child sexual assaults involving a family member reported to police result in criminal proceedings, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures show. For historical cases, that drops to 11 per cent.

A survivor herself, Taylor is among the co-founders of the Brave Movement, dedicated to ending childhood sexual violence. She has been invited to the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, to be held in Bogota, Colombia this week.

She will speak about the “obscenely low” prosecution and conviction rates for “the most catastrophic” crime against children and argue no meaningful change can be accomplished without addressing abuse at home.

Taylor at a national policing forum in 2005.Credit: Lisa Wiltse

“They might be sorry they invited me,” Taylor says. “We have to start showing the courage or there is absolutely no chance of solving it.

“Like it or not the most unsafe place for a child … is the home. It’s not a mental health issue, it’s a crime.”

Part of an expert advisory panel to the federal attorney-general’s inquiry into sexual violence, Taylor has been “respectfully at loggerheads” with members of the legal community over the lack of attention paid to intrafamilial abuse.

Taylor hypothetically reframes the examples of abuse as though they had happened outside the family. If the perpetrator had been a teacher, coach or priest there would be outrage. Taylor says people are right to be horrified but should not look away from those “trapped with the offender 24/7”.

“It doesn’t even raise a ripple. It should raise a storm.”

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see lifeline.org.au), 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), the National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service on 1800 211 028 or Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800.

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