AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Chris Goddard
Adjunct Professor, Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia, Monash University

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is shifting its attention from Brisbane Grammar to St Paul’s School. In two weeks’ time, the commission will return to issues in Melbourne and Ballarat. Anglican, non-denominational and Catholic institutions in different states are being scrutinised.

The adults who survived the abuse finally get the opportunity they were denied as children: to describe the abuse, after years of being silenced, and to identify the perpetrators and those who failed to listen and protect them.

Other adults are called to explain what they did, if anything, to protect the children and to stop the offenders. They will be asked about what was done to silence the children and to protect the institution. Some of these people are important – for example, Cardinal George Pell and…