AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Kate Stowell
The first regional Victorian hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are being held in Ballarat this week.
Reports of abuse in Ballarat’s schools, churches and orphanages date back to the 1950s.
Last year’s Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry which produced the Betrayal of Trust report described criminal child abuse in the Ballarat Diocese in the 1970s as “systemic” and “undeniable”.
It is believed at least 40 suicides in the Ballarat area are linked to child abuse-related illnesses, including post traumatic stress disorder and depression.
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