Interview with Bernadette McMenamin AO
Bernadette McMenamin AO
Chief Executive Officer of Child Wise in Australia
Why did you become interested in establishing a global campaign
against child exploitation?
Since
childhood I had always stood up against what I saw was injustice. This led me to
study politics and sociology and then later become a social worker so I could
work to change the world. Big ideas but this is what I wanted to do. For over
ten years I worked as a social worker on a large very underprivileged housing
estate in inner city
What were the steps that you took to make your vision a reality?
Determination
to stop the sexual exploitation of women and children was the main motivator for
me to help establish the global campaign and a belief that we could actually
change the situation. The practical steps were having a background in social
work and social advocacy and looking for opportunities overseas to work in this
field. When I began to seek employment through overseas aid agencies this issue
was not on their agenda so I had to create my own opportunities. If I could not
get paid work I was happy to work as a volunteer which I did and this was a very
empowering but very humbling experience. When I returned to Australia to
establish Child Wise the practical steps included raising awareness of the
problem through the media, writing to politicians to advocate for law reform and
attention to this issue, encouraging individuals and agencies to form a
campaign, establishing a legal entity and forming a board of directors, fund
raising and telling everyone who would listen about the problem of children
being sexually exploited. I did not receive any salary for the first three years
of ECPAT so I relied on waitressing at night as well as working 7 days to make
this vision a reality. Now we have 8 full time staff who are all paid as well as
a team of volunteers.
How did you financially support yourself whilst taking on so many
responsibilities on a voluntary basis?
In
What difficulties did you encounter then and continue to encounter
in your aims?
Initially
the main challenge was getting people to listen to these horrible stories; that
children were being exploited in prostitution, pornography and being trafficked
and traded around the world. It was even harder for people to hear that
Australians were exploiting poor and vulnerable children around the world. This
took a few years before people wanted to listen. However the most challenging
area is not having enough funds and resources to do all the work that we need to
do and to meet the demand for our services. Child Wise receives no ongoing, core
funding so every year we have to hope, pray but most importantly fund raise to
ensure that we can deliver our services. As a small organisation it is hard to
compete in fundraising with the very large agencies who can run mass media
campaigns and hire people to tele-market for donations.
Having said that we have been very fortunate to have kind and generous
donors that have helped Child Wise
enormously.
What do you perceive as being the best methods for lobbying
government and non-government groups?
Most
definitely the best method is effective use of the media. The government listens
to the media but we have always had to be careful to ensure that we do not burn
bridges with the government by the media being overly destructive. We also had
to be careful not to be used by the media. So by far the most effective strategy
has been to develop close relations with credible journalists that believe in
you and will continue to expose this problem. Child Wise has always been
solution focussed so we do not only expose the problem but we also highlight the
solutions. Another useful strategy has been to work closely with politicians of
all parties and to write to them, meet with them, send them your newsletters and
generally seek support from them. Always involve politicians. I always believed
and still do that I can bring about change and continue to be optimistic about
change. If you really believe in your cause others will to. Making the stories
of these children to people made it real to them and that there were things that
they could do to make a difference. No problem was to large to tackle.
In your estimation, what is the situation regarding the exploitation
of children and women worldwide?
There
are millions of women and children sexually exploited around the world. This
could either be commercial (child sex tourism, prostitution, trafficking,
pornography or non commercial in their own communities and families). It is
impossible to measure but in
Are cases of child sex within
With
more exposure of child sexual abuse there is more reporting and while this seems
that there is more child sexual abuse in
How do you regard the international and national efforts to
eliminate the exploitation of children and women in the developing
countries?
I
believe we are just beginning. IN ten years however we have come a long way. In
1992 when I went to help establish the global ECPAT campaign most people had no
idea of the issue of child prostitution and child trafficking. However the world
knows now through our efforts. In those days there were no local child
protection laws in most developing countries to protect children from sexual
abuse and exploitation. In 2005 there are laws in most developing countries to
protect children. In those days there were no extra territorial laws to
prosecute child sex tourists in their own countries but now 45+ counties have
these legal provisions to prosecute their nationals for abusing children in
other countries. In those days there were no preventative programs at a local
level to help prevent sexual abuse, child prostitution and child trafficking.
Now there are many programs at national and at local levels. In those days there
were no arrests of child sex tourists and child traffickers. Now there have been
multiple arrests around the world of these
offenders.
Yes there have been many many changes to make the world a safer place for
children but we have so much further to go. The global problem continues to
grows and while governments have committed themselves to protecting children
there have not committed enough resources to eliminating this problem especially
addressing the root causes of the problem; poverty, lack of access to education
and employment and the negative impacts of globalisation. The work has begun but
we will be fighting this problem for many years to come and this involves
keeping up the pressure on governments around the world to resource this issue
properly.
What would you like to see being done on a global and national scale
to address critical issues relating to the abuse of women and children?
See
above, Definitely more resources need to be allocated to addressing the root
causes of the problem which renders children and women and children vulnerable
to sexual exploitation. Governments need to work together to tackle this
international crime and allocate more resources to global law enforcement. More
resources and allocation of resources in the right places not just thrown at
knee jerk reactions or preventative measures that simply do not work. We need to
have a local and global approach which is holistic and not only focus on laws
and law enforcement but an approach that builds both the economic and
preventative capacity of communities to protect their children.
Can you describe some of your more innovative child abuse prevention
programs and advocacy campaigns against global child sexual abuse and
exploitation?
Lobbying
for the enactment of laws such as the Australian child sex tourism law and the
sex slavery law as well as tighter immigration regulations for unaccompanied
minors. Lobbying for child friendly legal procedures for child witnesses in
child sex tourism cases. Lobbying for a specialised Australian Federal Police
team to enforce both the child sex tourism law and the sex slavery law. Lobbying
for a police hotline for people to report child sex tourism crimes.
National
education campaigns to prevent child sex tourism including Travel with Care and
Don't Let Child Abuse Travel which encourages Australian travellers to report
child sex tourism where ever they travel. This campaign also has mobilised the
tourism industry to support initiatives to prevent the sexual exploitation of
children in tourism.
Encouraging
the Australian Government to establish a hotline to report child pornography and
a national education campaign on safe use of the Internet.
Other
programs include:
Child
Wise Tourism working in 9 SE Asian countries to prevent child sex tourism. This
program has been recognised as a model of international best practice. (there
are more details of this program on our website).
Choose
With Care- a capacity building, advisory and training program to build child
safe organisations which helps deter and reduce opportunities of child sex
offenders gaining access to children through child and youth focussed organisations
both in Australia and overseas.
Ground
breaking research on children involved in prostitution in
Training
hotels in
Training
social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and other professionals and
volunteers who work with children on how to counsel and treat children who have
been traumatised by sexual abuse and exploitation.
Can you discuss what was involved in your achievement to secure the
enactment of the Child Sex Tourism law in 1994 which makes sex with
children
overseas a prosecutable offence in
Over
14 months I worked closely with trusted journalists to keep this issue in the
media and these stories constantly called for the introduction of the child sex
tourism law. I pointed to other countries who were doing this (even though
What management and leadership skills do you employ in your role as
CEO of Child Wise?
I
am a very democratic leader and have a highly skilled and motivated team working
with me. I always seek their advice in the development of policy and new
programs. I provide my staff with opportunities to be responsible and creative
and overall I believe that I am very fair. It has also been important to have a
vision that the staff believe in so they know where they are going and ensure
that we all communicate on a regular level which is quite challenging when staff
are constantly overseas. The staff we have attracted to Child Wise share the
same passion that I have to prevent the sexual exploitation of children. Child
Wise is also a very child and family friendly workplace and I am very flexible
with my staff.
I
feel that leaders need to have a vision and be able to communicate and involve
their staff in this vision. They also need to listen to the views and needs of
staff and involve them in decision making. For me I think my passion and
dedication to the issue attracted similar people. In the early days when the
organisation was small we had few policies and Child Wise was more like a family
but now it is a fully fledged organisation and we have very clear and
transparent policies and procedures that the staff believe they have been
consulted on. Being accessible to staff at any time has been very important when
you are running a international development agency so when a staff member has
just conducted a very challenging training overseas they can call you at any
time and de-brief. I know I am a good leader because I have a vision and am
determined and nothing stops me from pursuing this. Over the years I have had to
change my style of management to meet the
needs of a growing organisation. However I have employed excellent staff both in
administration and child protection that ensure greatly assist in Child Wise
being well managed and our programs are of a high quality.