The queries you raise have been answered up-thread. But for clarity, I’ll answer a couple of your points that particularly jumped out at me.
Do you think the nursery would employ non DBS checked workers or only male ones who aren’t checked.
Probably not, I would imagine and hope that the vast majority of nurseries would carry out DBS checks diligently. But the key problem with relying on DBS checks is that they only show up offenders after they’ve been caught and have been convicted. They won’t catch anybody who hasn’t been caught yet, or will offend in future. So there is still risk. Why expose your child to it when there are ways of not doing that?
What so absolutely crazy is to automatically assume this worker is a pedo.
I’m not automatically assuming anyone is a paedo. What I am doing is using statistical evidence to make a risk-based assessment rooted in safeguarding best practice.
Males carry out 99% of sexual assaults. Therefore a male is far riskier, statistically, than a female, in this role. We also know that males who are so inclined deliberately try to insert themselves into roles where they have access to children to abuse. Small children are particularly vulnerable. Until somebody had actually offended and been caught, we don’t know which males have good intentions, and which do not. So we have to take precautions with all of them.
Given a choice between restricting, slightly, the scope of the man’s role, and safeguarding children from sexual abuse and a lifetime of trauma, we cannot prioritise the satisfaction of the adult male over the physical and psychological safety of the children. A civilised society recognises children are vulnerable and protects them. Ethically, the child’s interests have to come first.
There is a very respected study that shows for your child to come to any harm by a monster they would have to stand out on a corner for 20,000 years.
Can you provide a link to this study, please? I’m not aware of it and am surprised by the statistics you quote, as they do not stack up against other research into prevalence of child sexual abuse.
As for children facing more risk from relatives, that is statistically true. It is far too widespread. Are you suggesting an ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ approach? Like kids are being abused anyway, so why bother getting it down elsewhere? That’s really strange, if so. We should surely be looking to reduce harm wherever it occurs. Not letting males change nappies is a quick and easy way of reducing some of the risk. It’s still incredibly valuable to prevent some children being abused, even if we can’t prevent it for all.
I think a measure of calm is required sometimes.
Who’s not being calm? I’m advocating a clear-eyed calm way of approaching this where we set measured based on fact and statistical risk.