AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Christopher Knaus
Thursday 30 March 2017
A survivor whose voice will be one of the last to be heard in the child abuse royal commission has urged political leaders to cast aside religious loyalties and urgently introduce strong child protection measures.
On Friday, the public hearings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse will come to an end.
Over the past four years, the commission has revealed the disturbing extent of child abuse in religious and secular institutions across the country.
It has repeatedly uncovered far-reaching cover-ups of child sexual abuse, and shown how institutions have ostracised survivors and actively worked to undermine them.
The commission held more than 8,000 private sessions with survivors, 64% of whom were male, and 46% between 10 and 14 years old at the time they were abused. Five per cent of survivors were abused when they were under the age of five.
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