AUSTRALIA
ABC News
Even before this week’s public hearings in the Royal Commission into institutional child sexual abuse opened, hundreds of victims had been given the opportunity to give evidence at private hearings. Some of those victims came from the central Victorian city of Ballarat, a community with a long and much publicised history of sexual abuse.
Transcript
SCOTT BEVAN: Even before this week’s public hearings in the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse opened, hundreds of victims had been given the opportunity to give evidence at private hearings.
Some of those who have given evidence come from the central Victorian city of Ballarat, a community that has lived with a long and much publicised history of sexual abuse.
As others wait for the Commissioners to come to Ballarat, there are calls for survivors to receive greater support and for more action to prevent suicides resulting from abuse.
From Ballarat, Kate Stowell reports.
KATE STOWELL: The famed gold rush city of Ballarat is full of history.
The city is decorated with the opulent legacy of wealth, grand churches and halls from the late 19th century, when gold money spawned a renaissance of European architecture, amid the clash of cultures of all those who came here to make their fortune.
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