AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Danny Tran
Fairness and reform – that’s what the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says are its goals in releasing dozens of recommendations on the criminal justice system.
The royal commission has made a total of 85 recommendations, including major legal and policy changes which it hopes will be adopted across the nation to stamp out child abuse and prosecute more offenders.
But what are the most important changes being proposed, and how will they change the way Australia responds to child sex abuse?
1. You could be charged for failing to report child abuse
Most child abuse laws in Australia are aimed at perpetrators but this particular law will be aimed at other people, including the owners and managers of places that have children in their care.
The royal commission is recommending that state and territory governments make it a crime not to go to the police about child abuse.
But it goes further, arguing that reasonable people who “suspect, or should have suspected” that a child is being molested would be committing a crime if they did not go to the police.
The commission said the law was necessary, “particularly in light of the evidence we have heard from a number of senior representatives of institutions effectively denying that they had any knowledge or had formed any belief or suspicion of abuse being committed in circumstances”.
“Their denials are very difficult to accept,” it said.
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