Community & Business
16 October, 2024
Bikers protect abused children
HAVING been told they are now the largest non-for-profit organisation, Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) are a global force dedicating their lives to the protection of abused children, in the hopes they can remove the fear that these kids live with.
“Imagine a parent finds out their kid has been sexually abused. That child will be living in fear, and that’s where we come in,” BACA Tablelands president Bat said.
“No other organisation can be there 24/7 for these children, whereas we can.”
The organisation focuses solely on the children and removing their fear, they do not have any contact with the offender.
“We’re purely there to take away that fear from the child, just to make them feel safe and give them a safe environment amidst the trauma they’re experiencing.
“In relation to the perpetrator, we don’t have anything to do with them,” Bat said.
In order for a child to come into the protection of the group, the parent of the abused child needs to be on board and the offence has to be reported with local authorities.
“It has to be the parent or legal guardian who contacts us, but sometimes the agencies will on behalf on the parent.
“We check that the abuse has been reported when the parent rings us, so that way we know it’s in the system and everything has been done that the system offers.
“We check that therapy has been started and also that the perpetrator is not still living in the same house, because sometimes that happens,” he said.
The group protects children from the ages of 3-18 only, however, in some cases they will accept people above the age of 18 if there is an intellectual learning disability present.
“Once we take a case on, we’ll go and talk to the child first to make sure they actually want to be a part of BACA.
“Once the child agrees to be involved with us, we’ll put on a little ceremony for them.
“We give them a little BACA bikers vest and a BACA teddy bear that’s full of never-ending courage and they become a part of our family,” Bat said.
BACA members will then visit that child on a regular basis, and are also available to attend their premises at any needed time.
“Two primaries are assigned to a child, so there’s two of us present with them at any given time, and that’s for many legal reasons.
“The child gets visited every two weeks for up to eight weeks and after that they’re usually able to taper off to monthly visits.
“The whole goal is for the child to stop ringing us, our job is to relieve their fear. I’ve seen it happen within 40 minutes.
“We also get instances where the child thinks the perpetrator is trying to get into their room at night.
“It could be legitimate or it could be just their fear. When this happens, we’ll go and stand outside that child’s house until their fear goes away.
“It’s extremely rare that we come across the perpetrator, once they find out we’re involved they normally stay away,” he said.
The organisation was founded in 1995 in America and in 2002 the first chapter outside of the US was formed in Australia. Today the group is currently in 11 countries and that number is projected to be at 18 by the end of the year.
They have recently been told they are now the world’s largest not-for-profit with no paid employees, with over 6,000 bikers worldwide committed to helping abused kids.
“It’s really effective what we do and fairly simple, there’s lots of organisations that do brilliant stuff around the issue, such as therapy and counselling, but nobody does what we do.
“And it’s completely free, there’s no money involved,” he said.
There are seven chapters in Australia, being in every state except Northern Territory. The Queensland chapter is situated on the Tablelands and currently has five members.
To join the group, members need to obtain a blue card and complete 12 months of online training before being allowed to work with the children.
Bat has been with BACA since 2016 and working with the kids since 2018.
“One of the biggest problems we face is getting membership. We are always looking for bikers willing to step up and actually do something to help kids, rather than just talk about it.
“All of our members have a real passion to help kids,” Bat said.
The Tablelands chapter hold meetings on the first Sunday of every month in Speewah.
Also, every chapter worldwide does a “100-mile run” every May to raise awareness for BACA.
For more information, visit www.australia.bacaworld.org or call 1800 692 222.
