AUSTRLIA
The Guardian
January 2, 2018
By Melissa Davey
A vocal supporter of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Sheedy implored survivors to tell their story and to keep fighting for justice
For the past five years Leonie Sheedy travelled around Australia urging survivors of childhood sexual abuse in orphanages and foster care to tell their stories to the child abuse royal commission. She was the vocal and visible presence outside the commission’s public hearings, confronting politicians and holding placards. She stood in the glaring sun and pouring rain protesting against the leaders and institutions who failed children, demanding stories of abuse be recognised.
But despite imploring survivors of abuse not to take their stories to their grave, it took the 63-year-old until the commission had almost finished its work in December to tell her own harrowing story of being abused while in care at the Sisters of Mercy St Catherine’s Children’s home in Geelong.
“I’d say I’ve supported over 100 people to tell their story, and the oldest person I supported at the commission was 93,” Sheedy told Guardian Australia, following the tabling of the royal commission’s final report in December. “What happened as a result is I recognised I needed to ask for my own private session with the royal commissioners to tell my story.”
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