AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
November 5, 2015
Nick Toscano
Australia’s landmark child sex abuse inquiry has provided for the first time a profile of the most commonly reported instances of abuse from private interviews with thousands of survivors.
In a speech on Thursday, chairman of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, will outline a statistical overview of the disturbing experiences of almost 2800 sex abuse victims collected so far.
The commission’s analysis reveals the average age of abuse was 10 for males, and nine for females, while the most common decade in which abuse occurred was the 1960s (28 per cent) closely followed by the 1970s (23 per cent).
It also found that just under half of the reported abuse occurred in out-of-home care, including orphanages, children’s homes and foster care.
About 60 per cent of institutions where abuse occurred were faith-based organisations and 23 per cent were government-run.
Half of the abuse involved penetration and about two-thirds fondling. On average, child abuse spanned a period of 2.8 years.
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