Campaign supports permanent helpline for abusers

CHILDREN will not be fully protected from paedophiles until there is an avenue for potential offenders to seek help, a conference in Malahide heard yesterday.

Delegates at the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers annual conference were told people who feel uncomfortable with their own sexual thoughts and fear they may harm a child have nowhere to turn.

Keynote speakers from the Stop It Now campaign in Britain and Ireland said a permanent helpline should be set up which would help society to face up to the realities of sexually deviant behaviour.

Chairman of the Irish branch of Stop It Now, Gearoid Manning, said a lead agency like the Health Service Executive should take on the issue and tackle the problem before those with problems acted on their desires.

“We want to get Stop it Now up-and-running properly in the Republic of Ireland and have somebody working full time on the project, at the moment we are all only able to put in part-time hours.

“It really needs somebody like the HSE to provide host funding so that this can work properly,” he said.

While the Irish branch has been together since 2004 and is represented at policy level, it is trying to gain full recognition for the need to work directly with potential abusers.

Mr Manning said at the moment a lot of emphasis was on treating those who had already abused but that was too late for the children involved.

“There is already an excellent range of material available from England and it makes sense to use something that has already been working well in other jurisdictions, we have nothing here,” he said.

In Britain the campaign has been backed in different regions by various child protection organisations.

It runs a helpline during normal working hours, and provides an outreach service and has published a range of information leaflets.

Director of the British branch Tink Palmer said abusers, potential abusers, their friends, family or the victims had to have somewhere to go.

She said if society is to confront the problem it had to look at abusers as people who, by-and-large, did not want to be following through with their thoughts. “What we are finding from our helplines is that people are phoning saying ‘I am thinking about doing something and I want to stop myself’. In all, the abusers are not comfortable with their behaviour and they would go for help if it was available,” she said.

The conference continues today.