In the park again

We spend a fair bit of time in Plaza Bolivar. There are always plenty of people to watch. There's also free wi-fi and a lot of people can be seen sitting about doing their internet stuff. This little girl and her mother sat next to us and while the mother worked on her laptop, the child entertained herself quite effectively by engaging with whatever was available. She started with a kind of peek-a-boo game with us (the mature, three-year-old version), then went and sat opposite to see how things looked from there. The square is patrolled constantly by what I assume are municipal policemen and today's cop came along and offered to take her for a walk around the square. She accepted, took his hand and off they went. All this without consulting the mother, who seemed quite unconcerned, although she did keep an eye on where they were until they returned about five minutes later, with ice cream. After the child finished her ice cream (and put the wrapper in the bin without having to be told) she decided Mr D might be worth talking to and they enjoyed a number of jokes to which I was not a party.
Would any of this be permitted in Australia? Not any more. But here the culture is such that everybody looks after children as if they're their own. Very young children walk to school unaccompanied, play in the streets and markets and are apparently not taught to automatically regard every stranger as a dangerous predator. I know this cautious attitude seems to have become necessary in our society, but we've lost something.