AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Laetitia Lemke
Barriers of culture, language and distance are challenging the Royal Commission on Institutional Child Sexual Abuse as it reaches out to remote communities, including the Tiwi Islands.
Residents of the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, still have not decided if they want to talk to the commission about a 30-year-old case.
Dozens of children on the islands had claimed they were sexually abused by the principal of the local boys’ school, Brother John Hallett, over several years from the mid-1980s.
Brother Hallett was found guilty on two counts of committing an act of gross indecency, but both convictions were quashed on appeal.
Tiwi Islands Shire Council deputy mayor Marius Puruntatameri says the incident had a profound psychological impact on the community.
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