AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Christopher Knaus
Tuesday 6 December 2016
Survivors of the Salvation Army’s notoriously cruel children’s homes protested outside the royal commission on Wednesday, calling for states, territories and institutions to sign up to the national redress scheme.
The Salvation Army is before the royal commission for the final time this week, following earlier hearings examining children’s homes in Eden Park, Box Hill, Bayswater and Nedlands between the second world war and 1990; and Gill, Bexley, Riverview and Indooroopilly between 1993 and 2014.
The commission has heard harrowing stories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in the homes, and that a culture of fear made children too scared to report or resist their mistreatment.
Some children were threatened with physical harm when they came forward, and the reports of others were simply ignored, the royal commission heard.
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