Ban male nursery workers?

[BluntPlumHam]

I came across this article which has left me quite sick.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze665j2y51o.amp

Said 18 year old was newly qualified nursery worker who’d SA’d and raped 3 year olds.

Nurseries are desperate for workers and I have noticed through friends and families that there is now an increasing number of men entering the profession.

Men traditionally haven’t performed this role and I often find it difficult to envisage what attracts a male to this profession to begin with when we have so many instances of men who run away from childcare responsibilities.

Although men entering the profession can be a positive outcome the other very concerning outcome and on the potential rise is this.

Sex offenders will target this profession no doubt as it gives them easy access to children.

men are significantly more likely than women to sexually assault children.
Official statistics consistently show that the vast majority of individuals convicted of, or reported for, child sexual abuse (CSA) are male. For example:

• In the year ending March 2019, the Crime Survey for England and Wales found that 92% of adults who reported experiencing CSA said the perpetrator was male only.
• In 2022/23, almost 99% of individuals convicted of child sexual abuse offences in the UK were men.
• Reports to the Australian Royal Commission by victims and survivors of institutional abuse revealed that 93.9% of the abuse was perpetrated by an adult man.

So just a blanket ban on them all together ?

It isn’t my personal opinion but I do think we ought to have measures in place to make nurseries more secure and safer. This thread is to invite discussion.

Also, kudos to those brave little 3 year olds who had the courage to tell their parents because they’ve saved a lot of potential victims in the future. My thoughts and wishes for a life time of healing for them and theirs.

Sexual equality is impossible when men won’t meet certain standards. We are only hurting ourselves to force it.

You are correct about the NICU. Neither myself nor my DH were allowed to stay overnight with our 4 day old baby, who was born at 38 weeks and rushed there with a life threatening infection. I got 2 nights on my ward, but then was rushed out of there. He was overnight from 10pm-7am alone for 4 nights. Since news of Letby, I would now be utterly terrified at the prospect of this.

I think the EA already has that covered. Sex discrimination is permitted to achieve a proportionate aim. We already have a precedent for using legislation to exclude, or rather, only include, on the basis of sex where its required to protect the rights and safety of others. I assume any legislation regarding men in nurseries would be subject to the usual legal challenges by men who felt it didn't meet the bar, and would be adjudicated on merit. No need for any relaxing of the law, just application in its current form would suffice.

Yes, this.
It's men's fault that we don't trust them.
They've proved, over and over again, that they simply can't be trusted.

Women make up the vast majority of nursery workers so of course that will be the case.

No male workers or anyone who has a penis. A woman could also abuse, yes, but we dont have a pointy tool that gives us sexual satisfaction attached to our bodies .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mxk1g2vnjo

Just read this article and couldn’t help thinking of this thread. It’s really hard not to feel disgusted with men as a sex class some days. This example highlights inadequate safeguarding across the education sector. So upsetting.

There is an FBI agent who talked about the dark web forums who train pedophiles to answer job interviews for childcare facilities so they can get hired. He said because of the shortage of workers and general public political correctness it was easier for pedos to enter childcare facilities to have easy access to children.

Most murders of children in nurseries are done by women. Let's therefore ban all women from working in nurseries as well and instead let robots take over care of children.

@nomas I get it. The thousands…I mean hundreds…I mean tens….i mean isolated rare cases of murders of nursery children in the nursery setting….

Theres a gulf between rape and murder that many more men than women, engage with

You know this is like the stupid transphobic argument.

Someone who is going to harm someone will do it and find other ways to do it.

Men can do any job they want.

Haven't RTFT, but as I said on another thread on this topic:

Statistically speaking, males are overwhelmingly more likely to sexually abuse children. That's an undeniable fact. I don't think they should be involved in caring roles for young children that involve toileting or changing them etc.

Using this large study of Australian men, nearly 5.7% of surveyed men would have sexual contact with a child between 12 to 14 years if no one would find out, 4.6% would have sexual contact with a child between 10 to 12 years if no one would find out, and 4.0% would have sexual contact with a child younger than 10 years if no one would find out.

Around 1 in 10 (9.4 per cent) Australian men have sexually offended against children, and men with sexual feelings towards children are - of course - more likely to work with children.

Meanwhile, while females can and do perpetrate sexual abuse against children, the percentages are so much lower that it's been impossible for me to find any study that examines what percentage of females have sexual feelings towards children.

Female offenders also seem to target different age groups (overwhelmingly pubescent males, one large-ish study of female sex offenders appears to show), and have very different psychological profiles and motivations to male offenders. But of convicted sexual offenders (against all ages), females make up 2% on average, although it's estimated from one victimisation survey that female offenders may make up as much as 12%.

Basically, males are far, far, far more likely to present a danger to children in terms of sexual abuse. If you consider early childhood care to be a necessary, calculated risk (like driving a car is), then allowing male nursery workers is, imo, like driving with your seatbelt unbuckled, or while slightly over the limit in terms of blood alcohol levels - it's likely that nothing will happen, but you're introducing an unnecessary, major risk factor that could be avoided.

It reminds me of that argument too.
Men can do anything they want. Men will harm women and children if they want. So no point doing anything to try and prevent it. Women and children will just have to carry on being harmed. Because men can do what they want. Because that the important part.

And you do realise the trans argument isn't "men can do anything they want", don't you? Their argument is that there are indeed some places men shouldn't go, but that TW are not men, so shouldn't be excluded alongside men. If you're going to accuse other people of transphobia, you might want to check your own because I'm not sure likening men in general to TW is quite in the spirit of the other thing.

Transwomen are men, and are just as much a risk as any other men. In fact statistics show that they are more, not less represented amongst males convicted of sex offences.

It's not "transphobic" to point out these facts.

I bet the poster I responded to doesn't think that. I was simply pointing out the irony of their linking trans rights with men's rights while calling other people transphobic.

You increase the risk by assuming women are safe.

10% of men have sexually offended against children? I’m sorry but what is that stat based on? That’s exceptionally high.

The 1 in 10 (or 9.4%), as the study says, relates to both online and offline sexual contact by adults with under-18-year-olds, to align with other studies due to the age of consent laws in other countries. So a fairly wide net. However the study's authors say that figure is likely to refer to sexually predatory behaviour rather than consensual contact for reasons they outline in the linked study (too long for me to paste here!)

Regardless of what you think of the 9.4% stat however, the stats regarding sexual feelings towards younger children is highly concerning. The fact that 4% of men are willing to admit they would sexually abuse a child under the age of ten, if they thought they could get away with it, is massively worrying.

Ridiculous - Where is the evidence for this ?

Look at other cases like Roksana from Hounslow, west London 22-year-old nursery worker has been jailed for eight years for multiple counts of child cruelty after abusing 21 babies.

A woman who worked at a nursery has been charged with sex offences against children. Zara Lancashire, 20, of Datchworth Turn in Hemel Hempstead, was arrested on Monday and subsequently charged on Wednesday

These are both recent but do not get as much press time due to the fact they are women.

There have been way move female abusers in early years settings than men it just doesn't make the news. This hate for men in early years needs to stop. Where does it stop ? can males not be teachers , nannies , play workers childminders?. If the correct procedures are in place and the correct checks are done its not an issue.

I completely agree actually yes there are women that abuse but most women are maternal... pedophilia is more rife than people can comprehend it's probably the next biggest business to pharmaceuticals, it is our obligation to protect children from these monsters, men should not be working in nurseries, if you google Devon nursery sex abuse stories it's actually horrifying the number of male workers that have been caught abusing children at the nurseries... it's a no brainer in my opinion.

Why just nurseries, what about teachers, children nurses, childminders etc ? what happened to being inclusive? Women abuse to !
Saying men should not work in nurseries is disgusting and bigoted behaviour. The people writing these awful statements need to look at facts and not jump on the bandwagon. Children need to be educated by men and women and its important to have a balance.

Did you ready anything on this thread? Women do not abuse anywhere near as much as men.

Read more than you ! There are far more cases of women abusing in early years . Stop being silly and stop the hate !!!!

If you're happy with random men having intimate access to your non verbal child, great, that's fine for you to make that choice.

I am absolutely not happy to take the risk with my kids, that's not bigotry, that's safeguarding. My children's intimate care is not up for debate in the name of being inclusive.

My husband said this earlier actually during our morning catch up of the Mumsnet threads when discussing this one. (He lives for Mumsnet gossip but only second hand) and he said if men want to work with babies and toddlers because of the love of the job it’s very sad for them they’ll be looked at with suspicion however if so many men weren’t predatory around children, we wouldn’t be worried about them having access to our babies.
I asked would he be comfortable with a male nursery staff member caring for our dc and he said no. I countered that with times female nursery staff have abused or even killed children in their care and he asked me if the same ratio of men and women staff looked after babies, did I believe more SA would occur in nurseries and I said yes I did. That was pretty much the end of it really. I do believe that more men in roles with children would create more abused children. But ethically a blanket ban on male workers would likely be impossible.