Speak up against sex pests, Vic kids urged

Parents need to help in the fight against sex offenders by encouraging their children to speak up when they feel uncomfortable, say police.

Thirty-five Victorian sex offenders were caught loitering near schools and public places in the year to September 2015.

Superintendent David Watt said it was important children could talk when they were uncomfortable about what a stranger or someone they knew had done.

"(It's important) to know when they're feeling uncomfortable and it's absolutely OK to speak up about that and to tell someone and that people will believe them and they will do something," Supt Watt told AAP.

"One of the greatest tools these perpetrators have is that they're able to control children in a way that they will not report that sort of behaviour."

Supt Watt encouraged parents to call 000 if someone was behaving strangely around their children.

He also stressed that more than 90 per cent of child sex offences were committed by someone known to the child.