AUSTRALIA
The Stringer
by Colin Penter
September 23rd, 2015
“Victims and their families have been fighting for recognition and justice for decades and great victories were achieved when the Victorian Inquiry and the Royal Commission were established. But ‘for what’ they say.”
Judy Courtin
The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is after 2 years, at its halfway mark. The Commission is focused on systemic issues and institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse. Public hearings have been the main way the Commission does its work.
Although the Royal Commission’s brief is overwhelming, the hearings have been revelatory and harrowing. The Commission has heard evidence of horrific and horrendous systematic and institutional physical and sexual abuse and rape of children within religious, faith and welfare organisations.
Evidence to the Commission shows that both low and high level officials in institutions supposed to protect children actively conspired to abuse and rape them. In many cases these were highly sophisticated, organized institutional crimes committed against children.
The Commission has exposed the breadth of institutional settings – churches, schools, hospitals, out-of-homecare, children’s homes, juvenile centres, NFPs and charities- where abuse occurred.
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