SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald
December 15, 2017
By Melissa Cunningham
People working closely with children, such as priests or foster carers, should be forced to tell police about sexual abuse under mandatory reporting laws, a royal commission has found.
Religious ministers, out-of-home care workers, childcare workers, registered psychologists and school counsellors should be brought into line with police, doctors and nurses who are all obliged by law to report sexual abuse.
This would include any abuse disclosures made to clergy in confession.
In its final report, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has called for a systematic overhaul of the culture, structure and governance practices which allowed paedophiles to flourish.
The commission called for state and federal governments to bring in a single obligatory reporting model which would mean all individuals who work with children are required to report sexual abuse.
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