Abuse Survivor Urges Politicians to Introduce Child Protection Measures

By Christopher Knaus
The Guardian
March 30, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/30/introduce-child-protection-measures-survivor-to-tell-last-day-of-inquiry

Evidence to the royal commission showed the perpetrators of child sexual abuse were overwhelmingly men. Photograph: Jeremy Piper, royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse/AAP

A survivor whose voice will be one of the last to be heard in the child abuse royal commission has urged political leaders to cast aside religious loyalties and urgently introduce strong child protection measures.

On Friday, the public hearings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse will come to an end.

Over the past four years, the commission has revealed the disturbing extent of child abuse in religious and secular institutions across the country.

It has repeatedly uncovered far-reaching cover-ups of child sexual abuse, and shown how institutions have ostracised survivors and actively worked to undermine them.

The commission held more than 8,000 private sessions with survivors, 64% of whom were male, and 46% between 10 and 14 years old at the time they were abused. Five per cent of survivors were abused when they were under the age of five.

Perpetrators were overwhelmingly men, and most commonly members of the religious clergy (32%), teachers (21%) and residential care workers (13%).

The royal commission has already made a series of clear and unequivocal recommendations to federal and state governments.

Commissioners have urged for the creation of a national scheme of redress, a uniform and integrated working with children check system, mandatory reporting, and consistent child protection standards.

But state governments, including South Australia, have failed to act.

On Friday, the royal commission will give the last word to a group of six survivors, including Damian De Marco.

De Marco survived abuse in the Marist Brothers Catholic order, where abuse and cover-ups were rife.

He has since campaigned for child protection reforms across the country, and has achieved success in the ACT, which has introduced a mandatory reporting scheme.

De Marco will tell the royal commission that he has been surprised to find that “some of our highest leaders still have allegiances to institutions which prevail over their responsibilities to state”.

“The safety of many children across this country is now dependent upon whether our leaders have the courage to now put religious loyalties aside,” De Marco’s statement reads.

Bravehearts founder and child protection campaigner, Hetty Johnston, said it was now incumbent on state governments to act on the royal commission’s recommendations.

Johnston slammed the the lack of action from some states on issues like redress, working-with-children checks, and national consistency.

“It’s just shameful for them to not do the right thing by victims of crime. I mean these are children who were otherwise raped, and tortured, humiliated and harmed,” Johnston told Guardian Australia.

“It’s a heartless position to take to not care about that and not respond to it appropriately,” she said.

De Marco said the “big magnifying glass” of the royal commission had shown institutions were not able to investigate themselves, and could never be trusted. Investigations of child abuse must be conducted with independent or government oversight, and there must be severe penalties for those who fail to report abuse.

De Marco said the continuing refusal of some institutions to hand over documents on child abuse to the royal commission would be remembered in history. It is thought to be a reference to the Vatican’s refusal to hand over some of its documentation.

“Some institutions intend to continue to conceal this information from our government, treating us and our abused children with utter contempt,” De Marco said.

“No institution, given the privilege of operating on our soil, can be allowed to shield itself with questionable state immunity any more.”

De Marco will also call for more research into paedophilia, long-term treatment centres for habitual offenders, and for the ending of religious ceremonies in parliament.

He said some institutions could never be trusted to protect children.

“It is almost impossible to wrap your head around this,” De Marco said.

“But, we are now in a position where even the rape, buggery, molestation and often suicide of hundreds of thousands of innocent children worldwide by clergy and religious leaders, has still not been a sufficient enough motivating force for some religious institutions to reform their cultures,” he said.

Johnston said some institutions had shown clearly through the royal commission that they would not reform.

“I fear that some of them can’t wait for this royal commission to go away so they can get back to business as usual,” she said.

“But hopefully the recommendations will ensure these institutions can’t do that.”