Parents demand answers over Saint-Sulpice childcare abuse case

Parents in Saint-Sulpice, in the canton of Vaud, are accusing the municipality and a childcare centre of failing to act and communicate properly after a caregiver was arrested in a sexual abuse case, SRF reported.

Many families remain angry and unsettled after explanations from the municipality and an information meeting on Tuesday. They are asking whether their own children may also have been victims.

The alleged incidents involve a caregiver who worked at a childcare centre and in municipal childcare facilities. They date back to October 2025, when a two year old told their parents that the caregiver had kissed them on the mouth.

The childcare centre introduced monitoring measures, but the caregiver was not immediately barred from working. Eight months later, following a second report from the child and the filing of a criminal complaint, he was removed from the childcare facilities and arrested. He is currently in pretrial detention.

US authorities had previously alerted the Swiss Federal Police to the caregiver over suspected online activity. The same had happened in the case of a childcare worker from the Bern region who was accused of inappropriate conduct. The information from the United States led the North Vaud prosecutor’s office to issue a decision not to open proceedings in early 2025. The report was not investigated further.

Parents say the system failed in several ways. They accuse the childcare centre of not informing the canton directly when the first suspicions arose. They also criticise the municipality for waiting too long to communicate after the caregiver’s arrest in July. Families say they spent the entire summer in uncertainty.

Municipal president Marc Nathusius told French speaking Swiss broadcaster RTS that he could not comment on facts covered by the ongoing investigation because the municipality did not have access to the criminal case files. He said the report made in October 2025 had been dealt with the following day.

Nathusius said the family concerned had been received, the caregiver had been kept away from the child and enhanced monitoring measures had been introduced. No further report was received until June 2026, he said.

Based on the information available at the time, the management had not considered it justified to inform all families, Nathusius said. The cantonal office responsible for childcare, known as SCAJE, had also judged the internal measures to be appropriate and proportionate given the information available at the time, he added.

Several political parties filed a motion in the Vaud cantonal parliament on Monday in response to the case. It calls for a cantonal register of people prohibited from working in childcare for young children, aiming to close a gap in the current system for checking the professional and criminal backgrounds of people working with young children.

Several parents are calling for psychological support to be provided quickly, as well as help identifying possible warning signs in their children. The municipality has announced measures to strengthen care and supervision in its facilities and said an external audit would review decisions made since October 2025.