According to a report from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, over a five-year period, 252 current or past school employees either perpetrated or were accused of committing sexual offences against 548 children.
Another 38 employees, according to the report, were criminally accused between 2017 and 2021 for offences relating to child pornography.
Director of instruction at the centre in Winnipeg, Noni Classen, described the situation as “startling and a little frustrating.”
It is the only publicly accessible, national snapshot of sexual offences in schools, according to Classen. To create the database, the centre looked through disciplinary files, news articles, and criminal case law.
Any person who works in a school setting is included in the study, including teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and cleaning personnel.
The majority of organisations in charge of monitoring the discipline of school staff are not compelled to make the findings of their investigations public because education is a matter of provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Classen said that there is a severe lack of openness and that she believes the report’s statistics are conservative.
She remarked, “It’s just the tip of the iceberg.
When gender was known, the report states that 71% of victims were female and 29% were male.
37% of the offense-causing behaviours involved physical contact.
Stop Educator-Child Exploitation, or SECE, is an organisation made up of people who have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of school personnel. The organisation is urging the creation of independent national or provincial committees to look into teacher-on-student sexual exploitation.
It also calls for recompense for victims and a national investigation of child abuse by school personnel.
According to the investigation, 167 members of the school staff faced criminal charges over a five-year period, mostly for sexual assault, sexual interference, and sexual exploitation.
74% of offenders who had a supplementary role identified were coaches. Nearly 85% of those in attendance were guys.
Classen asserted that every child has a right to safety, particularly in schools. More than 58% of the offences happened on school grounds.
The harm to the youngster is exacerbated when a trusted adult or authority figure betrays that trust, according to Classen. She continued, “A sexually graphic text message or inappropriate comment is not only a grooming act; it can have disastrous effects on a youngster.”
“That someone betrays the family’s and the child’s trust… There may not be a bigger betrayal than that, she remarked.
Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook were the platforms most commonly used to facilitate victimization, the report says.
It suggests creating separate organisations to receive and look into complaints. It also recommends that all school employees complete child safety training programmes and that disciplinary records pertaining to these offences be made public. And there should be more trauma-informed support for students who are victimized.
According to Classen, the vast majority of educators work in educational institutions for the right reasons.
In order to ensure student safety, they also want more consistency in disclosure and regulations, she said.
Though not enough, Classen continued, there have been recent improvements.
She said, “There is so much work that needs to be done. We’re not seeing it as quickly as we’d want.
More than 250 Canadian educators are allegedly guilty of sexual offences: report
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