AUSTRALIA
Jacaranda FM
16 September 2013
More than 500 victims of child sexual abuse in Australian institutions will tell their stories to a public inquiry which began in Sydney today.
The chairman of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, warned that many testimonies would shock people.
McClellan had already heard 400 adult witnesses give their evidence behind closed doors, and the commission will now hear from 500 child abuse victims in open hearings.
“It is reported to us that when it occurs in residential institutions, sexual abuse is almost always accompanied by almost unbelievable levels of physical violence inflicted on the children by the adults who have responsibility for their welfare,” McClellan said at the start of the public hearings.
“Many have thought of suicide and some have attempted it,” he said.
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