AUSTRALIA
NT News
ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP AUGUST 15, 2014
AUSTRALIA lacks the most basic research evidence about the prevalence of child sex abuse necessary to produce sound policy to fight the crime.
THE finding has been made in a research report on mandatory national reporting laws published by the ongoing federal royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse.
Author Ben Matthews from the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at the Queensland University of Technology looked at reporting approaches in states and territories across Australia and found inconsistencies.
There was also no rigorous overarching research evidence which could be used to bring about a decline in the abuse of children, he found.
“On a broad level, Australia lacks even the most basic rigorous evidence about the national prevalence, incidence and characteristics of child sexual abuse,” Prof Matthews said.
In an accompanying review of international crime health data Associate Professor Matthews said a substantial decline in the US, declared in 2012, was identified after “assiduous analysis of seven different sources of data” which took in state and community incidence studies and self report surveys.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.