tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse-4545/articlesRoyal Commission into child sex abuse – The Conversation2023-04-19T05:11:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039142023-04-19T05:11:11Z2023-04-19T05:11:11ZHow can art respond to stories on institutional child sexual abuse?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521431/original/file-20230417-26-ycs5d9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=328%2C196%2C1428%2C1008&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Damien Linnane Bob (Dominoes) 2022. Graphite on paper 42 x 29cm</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On entry to Newcastle’s The Lock-Up contemporary art space is a textile artwork by institutional child sexual abuse survivor and artist Elizabeth Seysener. </p>
<p>Produced as part of the community arts program running alongside the Loud Sky exhibition, the triptych depicts the three major events in her story of recovery: carrying the burden of shame for over 50 years, the traumatising year of disclosure to the Catholic Church, and finding a place of being free to speak out.</p>
<p>In the entry to the next room, a loop of primary school photos of survivors reminds us it is children who were harmed. </p>
<p>Another room features a large timeline produced by graphic design students at the University of Newcastle. It depicts the central events of two public inquiries and court cases as they unfolded between 1995 and 2022. </p>
<p>Television footage captures the major events. A framed document expresses the heartfelt responses of family members of survivors, whose voices are rarely heard. </p>
<p>This exhibition, titled Loud Sky, addresses institutional child sexual abuse through the eyes of five professional artists commissioned to work with the local survivor community. </p>
<p>“Loud Sky” is a riff on the <a href="https://www.loudfence.org.au/about-us">Loud Fence Movement</a>, which began in 2015 in Ballarat as a community response to the harrowing details emerging from the hearings. Community members <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-28/loud-fence-ribbons-in-show-of-solidarity-for-sexual-abuse-cut/11830160">tied coloured ribbons</a> on the fences of Catholic churches and schools where children had been harmed. </p>
<p>This has since become an international movement.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-sweeping-reforms-for-catholic-church-to-end-child-abuse-89141">Royal commission recommends sweeping reforms for Catholic Church to end child abuse</a>
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<h2>Community art works</h2>
<p>The Newcastle region is recognised as an epicentre in the ongoing catastrophe of church-based institutional child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>From the 1950s, schools and parishes harboured clerical perpetrators who were constantly moved around to avoid detection. Families of devout Catholics were socialised not to question priests and brothers. Local Catholic managers put protection of perpetrators and the reputation of the church <a href="https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/6883709/searching-for-the-truth-in-a-horrific-history-of-clerical-child-sex-abuse/">above the safety</a> of children. </p>
<p>In 2022, the Loud Sky project ran community art workshops for anyone impacted by institutional child sexual abuse. Participants enrolled in painting, drawing and photography classes with experienced art therapists. The resulting artworks range from photographs of precious objects to paintings of the safety of home, and are on display at <a href="https://library.lakemac.com.au/Whats-On/Festivals-Exhibitions/LaunchpadLake-Mac-Libraries/Current-and-upcoming-exhibitions/The-Healing-Power-of-Art-Artworks-from-those-impacted-by-child-sexual-abuse">Belmont Library</a>. </p>
<p>A second community arts program, the <a href="https://mnnews.today/your-diocese/2023/56297-field-of-flowers-to-support-survivors/">Field of Flowers</a>, has been “planted” at Christ Church Cathedral and Sacred Heart Cathedral. School students, survivors, supporters and parishioners made over 8,000 ribbon flowers. The field is an act of remembrance and signals the hope for healing. </p>
<p>Loud Sky visitors have the option to sit in the gallery and make a ribbon flower to be “planted” in one of the cathedral fields. </p>
<h2>Listening to survivors</h2>
<p>These community programs complement the artwork from five commissioned artists. These artists began their commission with training in trauma-informed art practice to prepare for hearing the stories from the royal commission documents and the survivor community. </p>
<p>Each artist worked in collaboration with the survivor community, mostly members of the Clergy Abused Network, the central survivor support group in the Hunter region.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521433/original/file-20230418-16-no88ai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Damien Linnane Roslyn (Boots) 2022. Graphite on paper 42 x 29cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span>
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<p>Damien Linnane asked survivors to bring in a treasured object accompanied by a story of the object. His detailed, beautiful drawings focus on the power of memory to evoke the resilience of survival. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521435/original/file-20230418-28-rydizx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lottie Consalvo Silent Film 2023. Single-channel video 4 min 1 sec.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span>
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<p>Lottie Consalvo worked with a survivor and his partner to produce a beautiful video around the small everyday gestures that had sustained their lives through years of pain. The slow-moving, deeply contemplative silent film evokes the power of stillness and beauty. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521475/original/file-20230418-26-d6yi11.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Peter Gardiner The Fire 2023. Oil on 300gsm arches 250 x 550cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span>
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<p>Peter Gardiner’s epic oil paintings depict the power of fire to both destroy and recreate, following his reading of the stories of survival from the royal commission transcripts.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521477/original/file-20230418-21-k177vt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Fiona Lee Why Bother 2023. Latex, acrylic paint 98 x 167cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span>
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<p>Fiona Lee’s three casement windows evoke being both inside and outside, born from Lee asking survivors what motivated them to get up in the morning and find the courage of facing each new day and reaching out to connect with others.</p>
<p>Clare Weeks invited survivors to take a piece of paper and imagine a word that reflected their sense of resilience and hope. Each piece of blank paper was folded and scanned, the surface revealing idiosyncratic features. Large images of these scans span the walls. We are invited to take our own square of paper and imagine our own response before placing it in a large glass bowl.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521476/original/file-20230418-20-zy1au9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Clare Weeks notes to self, #14, #19, #11, #09, #07, #23, #08, #24 2023. Digital inkjet print from scanned silver gelatin photograph 79.5 x 59.5cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Lock-Up</span></span>
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<h2>The power of art</h2>
<p>Visual art can be an important means by which affected communities come to understand the impacts of harmful events in <a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-5342-2">creative and regenerative ways</a>. </p>
<p>Art helps process trauma and plays a vital role in restorative justice and truth telling. </p>
<p>It is a powerful corrective to dominant narratives often told by influential institutions with investments in protecting corporate reputations.</p>
<p>How we represent these stories of injustice and pain reflects our humanity and commitment to changing damaging social practices. </p>
<p>Through art, we can remain awake to the impacts of child sexual abuse and listen to the stories of those who survived such harm as children. </p>
<p>Perhaps the final words can be given to the visitor who wrote in the exhibition logbook: “We see you, we hear you, we believe you.”</p>
<p><em>The Loud Sky is at The Lock-Up, Newcastle, until May 21.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-altar-boys-new-questions-about-suicides-of-clergy-abuse-survivors-should-spark-another-inquiry-144962">The Altar Boys: new questions about suicides of clergy abuse survivors should spark another inquiry</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips receives funding from the Marist Brothers, Australia.</span></em></p>Loud Sky, at Newcastle’s The Lock-Up, brings together new commissions and community artworks to explore institutional abuse by the Catholic Church.Kathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976832023-01-12T22:44:12Z2023-01-12T22:44:12ZHow might the latest George Pell coverage affect child sexual abuse survivors?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504161/original/file-20230112-47543-2t2hk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C5455%2C3587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-leaning-on-wooden-table-3132388/">Photo by Andrew Neel/Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might have wondered if the recent death of George Pell, who was jailed in 2019 for child sexual abuse and then later acquitted, would bring a sense of relief or closure for victim survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse. </p>
<p>After all, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found Pell had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/12/george-pell-what-the-five-year-royal-commission-into-child-sexual-abuse-found#:%7E:text=The%20royal%20commission%20rejected%20Pell's%20position.&text=The%20commission%20found%3A%20%E2%80%9CWe%20are,deceived%2C%20intentionally%20or%20otherwise.%E2%80%9D">failed</a> to do enough during his time in senior church roles in Australia to stop priests who abused children.</p>
<p>In fact, news of Pell’s death may generate a roller coaster of complex and variable emotions among abuse survivors. </p>
<p>This mix of emotions may include sadness for the ongoing consequences of the abuse for fellow victim/survivors, and anger at the lack of justice for so many.</p>
<p>There’s also the potential post-traumatic stress reactions triggered by this recent round of media coverage – such as fear, dissociation, distressing memories and sleep disturbance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/george-pell-a-political-bruiser-whose-church-legacy-will-be-overshadowed-by-child-abuse-allegations-197613">George Pell: a 'political bruiser' whose church legacy will be overshadowed by child abuse allegations</a>
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<h2>Lifelong impacts</h2>
<p>Extensive research reveals how significantly childhood sexual abuse can affect a victim survivor’s self-identity, relationships and capacity to trust others.</p>
<p>Potential <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28864118/">mental health</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35950515">effects</a> include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and depression.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25322886/">Evidence</a> suggests clergy-perpetrated child sexual abuse can lead to very serious mental health <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">outcomes</a>, impaired spiritual wellbeing and distrust in the church and God.</p>
<p>This can lead to significant isolation from family and the faith community. </p>
<p>Many survivors of clergy child sexual abuse <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27229919">report</a> struggling with a fragmented sense of self into adulthood. Significant grief at the loss of childhood and the freedom to develop to their true potential are common. </p>
<p>Clergy-perpetrated childhood sexual abuse is particularly toxic as the abuse is done by moral and spiritual leaders who are meant to protect the child, leading to a profound <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">lack of trust</a> in others.</p>
<p>These effects are pervasive and can be lifelong. The impacts of trauma do not end with the demise of an abuser or the resolution of a court case. They will not end or be resolved with the death of Pell. In fact, recent widespread media coverage could exacerbate it.</p>
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<h2>Pell coverage may spark distress among survivors</h2>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064691/">Research</a> reveals intensive media coverage of traumatic events can increase PTSD symptoms acutely, particularly in those experiencing long-term trauma.</p>
<p>Greater cumulative media exposure can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301940831_Psychological_Outcomes_in_Reaction_to_Media_Exposure_to_Disasters_and_Large-Scale_Violence_A_Meta-Analysis">lead</a> to more adverse mental health outcomes.</p>
<p>This can occur in several ways, triggering: </p>
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<li><p>distressing and intrusive memories of a survivor’s own abuse, leading to intense fear reactions, sleep disturbance and other PTSD symptoms</p></li>
<li><p>thoughts of injustice and institutional cover-up, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27229919">leading</a> to anger, self-blame or lower self-esteem</p></li>
<li><p>rumination on what survivors have lost due to such abuse, promoting grief and sadness. </p></li>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people hold hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Childhood sexual abuse can affect a victim survivor’s self-identity, relationships and capacity to trust.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Many recent media reports and obituaries have highlighted the career success of Pell in reaching the upper echelons of the Catholic Church and his role as a spiritual leader.</p>
<p>Yet these accolades strike a highly discordant note with the findings of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/12/george-pell-what-the-five-year-royal-commission-into-child-sexual-abuse-found">Royal Commission</a>, which criticised him sharply for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/11/george-pell-dead-australian-cardinal-dies-aged-81-rome-vatican#:%7E:text=A%20royal%20commission%20into%20institutional,priests%20removed%20from%20the%20church.">not doing more</a> to protect children from dangerous priests.</p>
<p>Glowing media reporting about Pell may inadvertently increase distress among survivors.</p>
<p>Coming forward about child sexual abuse is incredibly, incredibly difficult and good psychological support following a disclosure is very important.</p>
<p>Not being believed, or being swept up in institutional cover-ups of sexual abuse makes poor mental health outcomes <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34022858">much</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">more likely</a> for those who survive it.</p>
<p>Media reports that focus on Pell’s career success and spiritual standing, without properly acknowledging outcomes from the Royal Commission, may reinforce this sense of not being believed and injustice at institutional inaction.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25846196/">Research</a> reveals key predictors of not disclosing sexual abuse include fear of not being believed, shame and self-blame.</p>
<p>It is likely survivors of abuse are having a particularly tough time during this recent uptick of reporting around Pell and the broader problems of clergy child abuse. </p>
<p>It is vital their experiences and the impact of these experiences are fully acknowledged and validated, and survivors are provided with ongoing support.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-trauma-takes-the-media-gets-wrong-157403">3 trauma takes the media gets wrong</a>
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<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you or you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: a previous version of this article used the incorrect name for the royal commission.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Felmingham receives funding from the NHMRC. </span></em></p>News of George Pell’s death may generate a roller coaster of complex and variable emotions among abuse survivors.Kim Felmingham, Chair of Clinical Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976132023-01-11T01:50:18Z2023-01-11T01:50:18ZGeorge Pell: a ‘political bruiser’ whose church legacy will be overshadowed by child abuse allegations<p>Former senior Vatican figure George Pell has died in Rome from <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/cardinal-george-pell-dies-vatican-aged-81/101843096">complications</a> following hip surgery. He was 81.</p>
<p>Pell, often described as a conservative Catholic, was jailed for <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/what-cardinal-george-pell-hated-most-about-his-time-in-prison/news-story/1ec0d4d2112e1d7af745189b397e1be5">13 months</a> for child sexual abuse in Australia in 2019 but maintained his innocence and was acquitted the following year.</p>
<p>Once a top official in charge of reforming the Vatican finances, and also Australia’s highest-ranked Catholic figure, Pell leaves behind a complex legacy.</p>
<p>His death will be sad for the Catholics who held him in high regard but less so for the many critics he attracted in Australia and elsewhere over the course of his career. </p>
<p>It’s hard to believe he will not be remembered most vividly for the trial in 2019 and 2020, when he was accused and then convicted of several counts of sexual abuse of children within the St Patrick’s Cathedral complex itself. His conviction was later overturned.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality</a>
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<h2>Heavily criticised</h2>
<p>Though his conviction was overturned by the High Court, there are many in Australian society who still felt Pell didn’t do enough when he was Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney to act against abuse by priests in the dioceses he controlled.</p>
<p>He was heavily <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/pell-knew-in-1982-that-ridsdale-was-moved-to-save-church-from-scandal-20200507-p54qr9.html">criticised</a> by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. When its report was released after Pell’s conviction was quashed in 2020, it condemned him for his failures to take action against abusive priests – particularly against serial paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.</p>
<p>One thing I think Pell’s own court case highlighted is a particular absurdity about legal reporting in Australia, in that everyone outside Australia knew he had been convicted but no one in Australia could report it. </p>
<p>That’s part of his legacy; this case exposed the difficulty in legal reporting. It’s actually quite important.</p>
<h2>A political bruiser</h2>
<p>Pell was, without a doubt, the most powerful Australian ever to rise through the ranks of the Catholic church. He put Australia on the map in the Vatican in a way it had not been at any other time in history.</p>
<p>It’s testament to how well he was regarded as an administrator in the church that even though he was one of the most staunch conservatives of his generation, the comparatively liberal Pope Francis still turned to him to ask him to regain control of Vatican finances. In other words, his talents were recognised even by liberals within the church.</p>
<p>He was an outsider to the nexus of Italian cardinals who usually controlled that aspect of Vatican activity. </p>
<p>When you talk to people who knew him, they say that in private Pell could be quite charming. But his public personality was as a political bruiser who was simply able to sweep aside opposition, which is what allowed him to ascend the hierarchy so quickly.</p>
<p>He was an ideological fellow traveller with Pope Benedict in many ways, but their style and personality couldn’t have been more different. Benedict was the softly spoken professor type, whereas Pell learned how to do politics in the boxing ring and on the footy field. That shaped his response to any given problem. </p>
<h2>Before and after the court cases</h2>
<p>Pell came from Ballarat, and had, in many ways, a difficult childhood where he wasn’t always physically well. </p>
<p>But he came through it and channelled a lot of his energy into physical pursuits. He <a href="https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/richmond-removes-cardinal-george-pell-as-club-vice-patron-following-child-sex-crime-conviction/news-story/b7fa3681fb5d80c11d44a3346a78a2a7">signed</a> for Richmond Football Club in 1959 and was on the verge of becoming a professional player. Yet he decided instead to give it all up to go into the seminary. I don’t think anyone but he could explain exactly why he made that choice.</p>
<p>His talent to cut to the heart of the problem and impose his solution is what got him noticed by his superiors in Australia and the Vatican and helped his rise though the ranks.</p>
<p>After the court case, Pell quietly returned to Rome, where he has been living in semi-retirement since. He’s only made a handful of public statements and he also published some writing he did during his time in prison.</p>
<p>In Easter last year he urged the Vatican to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/cardinal-george-pell-and-the-status-of-gay-catholics/13809320">intervene</a> to stop German priests who were advocating that homosexuality might be OK. </p>
<p>All in all, Pell had an important impact on making Australia central to the church but that will be overshadowed by the accusation he didn’t do enough to stop abuse by priests and by his own court cases. </p>
<p>This period will no doubt be triggering for survivors and it’s important to remember that. Many adults in the Catholic church and other institutions failed children in a lot of ways and it’s important we remember survivors of abuse and the profound effect public discussion of this case will have on them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-media-outlets-been-fined-more-than-1-million-for-their-pell-reporting-162173">Why have media outlets been fined more than $1 million for their Pell reporting?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miles Pattenden has previously received research funding from the British Academy, the European Commission, and the Government of Spain.
</span></em></p>Pell, often described as a conservative Catholic, was jailed for child sexual abuse in Australia in 2019 but maintained his innocence and was acquitted the following year.Miles Pattenden, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1656772021-08-05T07:22:37Z2021-08-05T07:22:37ZHillsong pastor Brian Houston charged with allegedly concealing information about child sex offences<p>Hillsong church pastor Brian Houston has been charged over the alleged concealment of information relating to child sex offences.</p>
<p>Houston is a personal friend of Scott Morrison who wanted him invited to the White House state dinner President Donald Trump held in the prime minister’s honour in 2019.</p>
<p>But the White House rejected Houston.</p>
<p>A NSW Police statement issued late Thursday said: “In 2019, an investigation commenced by officers attached to The Hills Police Area Command into reports a 67-year-old man had knowingly concealed information relating to child sexual offences.</p>
<p>"Following extensive investigations, detectives requested the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) review their brief of evidence.”</p>
<p>Earlier this week, the ODPP gave its advice to police. After further inquiries, “detectives served a Court Attendance Notice for conceal serious indictable offence on the man’s legal representative” on Thursday afternoon.</p>
<p>“Police will allege in court the man knew information relating to the sexual abuse of a young male in the 1970s and failed to bring that information to the attention of police.</p>
<p>"The man is expected to appear in Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday 5 October 2021,” the police statement said. </p>
<p>In 2015 the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, which examined allegations against Houston’s father Frank, found neither the executive of the Assemblies of God in Australia nor Brian Houston referred the allegations to police. </p>
<p>It found Brian Houston “had a conflict of interest” in assuming responsibility for dealing with the allegations “because he was both the National President of the Assemblies of God in Australia and the son of Mr Frank Houston, the alleged perpetrator”.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal broke the story, during Morrison’s US trip, of the PM’s nomination of Houston for the dinner and the rejection.</p>
<p>Morrison dodged questions at the time and later about whether he had put Houston’s name up. He said the story was “gossip”.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until March 2020 that he confirmed it, telling 2GB “we put forward a number of names, that included Brian, but not everybody whose names were put forward were invited”. He said he had known Houston a long time.</p>
<p>In the 2GB interview, Morrison was asked whether he was not aware that Houston was under police investigation at the time.</p>
<p>“These are not things I follow closely,” Morrison said. “All I know is that they’re a very large and very well attended and well-supported organisation here in Australia.</p>
<p>"They are very well known in the United States – are so well known that Brian was actually at the White House a few months after I was. So the President obviously didn’t have an issue with it. And that’s why I think that’s where the matter rests.”</p>
<p>Houston has been living in the US for some time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hillsong church paster Brian Houston has been charged over the alleged concealment of relating to allegations of child sex offences.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1381022020-05-07T06:49:47Z2020-05-07T06:49:47ZHow George Pell failed child sex abuse victims: the full findings of the royal commission report<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333268/original/file-20200507-49569-3eew8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=448%2C27%2C4149%2C2961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Crosling/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=date-eFirst;query=Dataset%3Atabledpapers%20Decade%3A%222020s%22;rec=4;resCount=Default">Significant sections of the final report</a> of the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> were released today. </p>
<p>When the report of the world-leading, five-year investigation was presented to the governor-general in December 2017, large sections of three volumes were blacked out. They had been redacted so as not to prejudice a number of ongoing or forthcoming criminal proceedings, including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">cases against Cardinal George Pell</a>. </p>
<p>The three redacted volumes were the report of Case Study 28 (on church authorities in Ballarat), the report of Case Study 35 (on the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne) and <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_16_religious_institutions_book_2.pdf">Volume 16, Book 2</a> of the final report, which focused on the Catholic Church generally. </p>
<p>The majority of the redactions related to what Pell knew about accusations of clerical child sexual abuse against various clergy in Ballarat and Melbourne, and what he could and should have done at the time. They remained redacted while he was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">facing legal action</a> in relation to child sexual abuse allegations against himself.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality</a>
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<p>Victorian police <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria-polices-full-statement-concerning-charges-against-cardinal-george-pell-20170629-gx0xh5.html">announced</a> they were charging Pell with a series of offences in June 2017. Almost half the charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence, including after the death of one complainant, and another being ruled medically unfit to give evidence. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/26/cardinal-george-pell-vatican-treasurer-found-guilty-of-child-sexual-assault">Pell was convicted</a> in December 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two boys in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s. Additional charges relating to allegations of sexual misconduct in Ballarat were dropped. </p>
<p>Pell’s conviction was upheld on appeal to the Supreme Court of Victoria in June 2019, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">overturned</a> in a final appeal to the High Court last month.</p>
<p>In an interview with Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt after his acquittal, Pell <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/royal-commission-s-pell-findings-due-out/985b5b01-1a2b-498c-a6ee-c7d528fe738f">said</a> he would “be very surprised if there’s any bad findings against me at all” in the redacted material in the royal commission’s report.</p>
<p>This is not the case.</p>
<h2>What Pell should have done in Ballarat</h2>
<p>Pell was ordained a priest in 1966, and seven years later was appointed as episcopal vicar responsible for education in the diocese of Ballarat.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">The jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell's successful appeal</a>
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<p>Of his time in Ballarat, Pell claimed to have been ignorant of the horrific abuses of the now notorious convicted child sex offender <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/ridsdale-admits-more-abuse-but-lawyer-asks-for-no-extra-jail-time-20200427-p54nmn.html">Gerald Ridsdale</a> and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/christian-brothers-under-financial-pressure-after-paying-213-million-in-sex-abuse-compensation-20190713-p526v4.html">Christian Brothers</a> who were teaching in Ballarat schools.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gerald Ridsdale giving evidence during the child sex abuse royal commission’s Ballarat inquiry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Commission/PR handout image</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But the royal commission found otherwise, saying they were </p>
<blockquote>
<p>satisfied that by 1973 Cardinal Pell was not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commission also did not accept Pell’s evidence that <a href="https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3828106/former-ballarat-bishop-ronald-mulkearns-dies/">Bishop Ronald Mulkearns</a> lied to him and the other consultors about </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the true reason for moving Ridsdale – namely, his sexual activity with children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commissioners accepted evidence that pupils at St Patrick’s College, Ballarat, told Pell that Christian Brother Edward Dowlan was touching boys there. They further accepted that Pell </p>
<blockquote>
<p>said words to the effect of ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ and walked away. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pell claimed to have no recollection of these events and did not accept that he had been told of Dowlan’s abuse in 1974.</p>
<h2>Failure to report Father Searson</h2>
<p>Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987. Two years later, he was handed a list of grievances and allegations about a priest, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35713743">Peter Searson</a>. </p>
<p>The complaints about Searson’s violent, threatening and sexually abusive behaviour are shocking. In his evidence before the commission, Pell accepted that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Father Searson should have been stood down or removed from the parish. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, he simultaneously did not think that it was his place to investigate the allegations against Searson. According to the report,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cardinal Pell’s evidence was that he could not recall recommending a particular course of action to the archbishop. He conceded that, in retrospect, he might have been ‘a bit more pushy’ with all of the parties involved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commissioners are scathing of Pell’s inaction in this case. They rejected that this view could only have come to him “in retrospect”. They wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>on the basis of what was known to Bishop Pell in 1989, it ought to have been obvious to him at the time. He should have advised the archbishop to remove Father Searson and he did not do so.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pell was responsible for “the welfare of the children in the Catholic community of his region” and he failed to take action to secure their safety.</p>
<p>The commissioners describe this case as indicative of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a failure of the system in place to properly respond to complaints, including taking responsible action about those complaints.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Searson <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/long-awaited-george-pell-royal-commission-findings-released-20200507-p54qmo.html">died in 2009 without being convicted</a>. The church has paid nearly $300,000 in compensation to his victims.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-coronavirus-china-was-falsely-blamed-for-spreading-smallpox-racism-played-a-role-then-too-137884">Before coronavirus, China was falsely blamed for spreading smallpox. Racism played a role then, too</a>
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<h2>History no longer blacked out</h2>
<p>The now-unredacted report is stark and methodical in documenting Pell’s knowledge of allegations of abuse, and his consistent and repeated failures to report and investigate that abuse. As priest, vicar, bishop and archbishop, he did not do his job to protect the children under his care. </p>
<p>None of the information revealed in the unredacted volumes released today is new. Neither does it transform our understanding of the individual and systemic failures of major institutions like the Catholic Church to respond appropriately to allegations of child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>But it may be some comfort to survivors that the detailed investigation of this horrific history is no longer blacked out, and the full details of the investigation have been made known.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy W. Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council and worked as a consultant for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. </span></em></p>Pell said after his acquittal he would ‘be very surprised if there’s any bad findings’ in the redacted portions of the royal commission report. This is not the case.Timothy W. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1319932020-02-19T06:07:25Z2020-02-19T06:07:25ZGrooming: what parents should know and what schools should do if they suspect it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316096/original/file-20200219-11040-uty6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4563%2C3019&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/4nKOEAQaTgA">Taylor Wilcox/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/">ABC’s Four Corners</a> exposed an elite Melbourne school for failing to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-17/investigation-into-teacher-behaviour-at-st-kevins/11972138">adequately respond</a> to the grooming of a student by a former athletics coach, who is now a convicted offender.</p>
<p>Several current and former staff, students and parents told Four Corners St Kevin’s College had a history of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-19/st-kevins-headmaster-stephen-russell-resigns/11980008">failing to adequately deal</a> with complaints of inappropriate behaviour.</p>
<p>Those complaints involved an allegation of sexual harassment and concerns raised by staff members about potential grooming and inappropriate behaviour towards boys by two male teachers. </p>
<p>Findings <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">from the Royal Commission</a> into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse identified abuse has generally occurred in instances when:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>leadership and governance had failed (such as not acting on suspicions or allegations of grooming or abuse)</p></li>
<li><p>there were inadequate or poorly implemented policies and procedures (resulting in ambiguity on what and when to report concerns)</p></li>
<li><p>there was insufficient training for staff to able to spot grooming and signs of sexual abuse at school.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, what are schools required to do if they suspect grooming, or if suspicions are raised? </p>
<h2>What is grooming?</h2>
<p>Grooming is typically considered to be the deliberate action of an adult to befriend a child and establish an emotional connection with him or her. It often (but not always) precedes abuse. </p>
<p>The perpetrator uses grooming behaviours to build a child’s trust and create opportunities to perpetrate abuse.</p>
<p>Grooming encompasses a <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">wide range of tactics</a>, which can include giving the child extra attention or touching them in a non-sexual way, which, over time <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/jdibrief/documents/sexual-abuse-in-schools/SEXUAL_ABUSE_IN_SCHOOLS__1-5_All_.pdf">escalates into intimate</a> behaviours. </p>
<p>Once abuse starts, grooming may be used to <a href="https://www.qct.edu.au/pdf/Transgressions.pdf">maintain, control and conceal</a> the abusive behaviour. </p>
<p>Many perpetrators are now using e-grooming – <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740912003544">grooming in an online environment</a> – as another tactic to initiate abuse. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-excuse-of-pure-fantasy-works-in-online-child-sex-abuse-cases-88231">How the excuse of 'pure fantasy' works in online child sex abuse cases</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What does grooming look like at school?</h2>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">royal commission</a>, survivors of school-based sexual abuse provided accounts of their experience. They said they had been singled out by the abuser with rewards, attention and favouritism.</p>
<p>While children of any age, gender or background can be victims of grooming, children who experience <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">discrimination, isolation and racism</a> are among those most targeted due to their social vulnerability. </p>
<p>The nature of school environments provides regular interactions between students and staff, as well as authority of staff over children. This can facilitate grooming and create <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">opportunities for abuse</a>. The term “<a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583720.001.0001/acprof-9780199583720-chapter-5">institutional grooming</a>” describes the perpetrator using a position of trust to gain access to a child and avoid detection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316097/original/file-20200219-10976-sfgqlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Perpetrators of grooming can use online and offline methods to reach their victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-girl-sitting-on-yellow-sofa-727469575">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The perpetrator <a href="https://www.csyw.qld.gov.au/child-family/protecting-children/what-child-abuse/child-sexual-abuse">may also groom</a> significant others (such as parents, carers or teachers of the child) to build their trust and create further opportunities for abuse. </p>
<p>Children’s behaviour may be a signal they are being groomed. This could include a <a href="https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/news/2019/may/grooming-often-discovered-not-disclosed-how-can-teachers-spot-signs/">change in the child’s manner</a> that is out of character. While not telltale signs, <a href="https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/grooming/#signs">indicators can include</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>appearing withdrawn or distressed </li>
<li>avoiding school staff or activities</li>
<li>secrecy about who they are spending time with (offline and online)</li>
<li>having new unexplained things (such as a mobile phone).</li>
</ul>
<h2>What can parents do if they suspect grooming?</h2>
<p>When parents suspect grooming, they should direct their concerns to the school, no matter how trivial it may seem. Often, <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/jdibrief/documents/sexual-abuse-in-schools/SEXUAL_ABUSE_IN_SCHOOLS__1-5_All_.pdf">only after abuse is disclosed</a>, a process of joining the dots uncovers a history of unreported concerns that, in isolation, did not appear to be serious, but together indicated harm. </p>
<p>Of course parents can report directly to police if they believe a crime has been committed. Reluctance to raise concerns is often linked to fear of being wrong. </p>
<p>Secrecy is a powerful tool used by perpetrators to groom children, perpetrate abuse and avoid detection. The best line of defence is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-parents-need-to-know-about-the-signs-of-child-sexual-abuse-113559">open communication and dialogue</a> with children about appropriate and inappropriate behaviours.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-parents-need-to-know-about-the-signs-of-child-sexual-abuse-113559">What parents need to know about the signs of child sexual abuse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This creates a safe environment for young people to initiate conversations about issues thare are worrying them. It can enable them to disclose or alert parents to concerning behaviour – whether they notice it in adults or children. Research <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/responding-children-and-young-people-s-disclosures-abu">shows young people most often</a> disclose abuse first to a parent or peer.</p>
<p>Open dialogue between parents and schools is also essential. Parents <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_13_schools.pdf">should be informed</a> of the school’s child protection policies and protocols. They have the right to ask the school what strategies they have in place to keep their children safe. </p>
<p>If parents have reported suspicions to the school but feel like they have not been heard, they are advised to raise their concerns with police.</p>
<h2>What should schools do to protect children?</h2>
<p>Teachers (like parents) should <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/jdibrief/documents/sexual-abuse-in-schools/SEXUAL_ABUSE_IN_SCHOOLS__1-5_All_.pdf">raise all concerns</a> or disclosures to the school leadership, regardless of how trivial they appear or how respected the teacher involved is. </p>
<p>The Australian Human Rights Commission’s <a href="https://childsafe.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-02/National_Principles_for_Child_Safe_Organisations2019.pdf">National Principles for Child Safe Organisations</a> were developed in response to recommendations handed down during the royal commission. These principles – which have been endorsed by all governments – provide guidance on how schools can help ensure children’s safety.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1229681354524114944"}"></div></p>
<p>Under the principles, schools leaders should develop child safety policies and procedures, ensure they are transparent and widely communicated (including with parents) and consistently enforced. This includes guidelines for reporting, responding to complaints and supporting students. </p>
<p>Some of these <a href="https://childsafe.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-02/National_Principles_for_Child_Safe_Organisations2019.pdf">actions</a>) include:</p>
<ul>
<li>providing staff training to respond effectively to child safety issues</li>
<li>ensuring processes to respond to complaints are child-focused, aimed at protecting children as a priority</li>
<li>handling complaints seriously, and responding promptly and thoroughly to any concerns.</li>
</ul>
<p>Schools must equip teachers <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740912003544">with the knowledge</a> and skills to identify concerns, talk to children about safety (including <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/responding-children-and-young-people-s-disclosures-abu">providing support and reassurance</a>, and raise concerns with school leadership or other authorities where necessary.</p>
<p><a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect">Mandatory reporting laws</a> typically require teachers (and other occupations) to report their concerns where it is suspected, on reasonable grounds, that a child has or is being abused. But these these laws, and threshold assessments, differ across jurisdictions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-royal-commissions-final-report-has-landed-now-to-make-sure-there-is-an-adequate-redress-scheme-89158">The royal commission's final report has landed – now to make sure there is an adequate redress scheme</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>All schools, however, should have child safety policies in place to guide their responses to concerns that don’t meet this threshold, but that still warrant monitoring or follow-up at a local level, as a form of early intervention. </p>
<p>School leaders must empower students, parents and teachers to raise concerns without fear of reprisals. Without strong leadership, grooming and other behaviours may go unreported, be ignored or dismissed. </p>
<p>Any failings of school leadership should be investigated and addressed by education boards or regulators.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When parents suspect grooming, they should direct their concerns to the school, no matter how trivial it may seem.Larissa Christensen, Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine CoastNadine McKillop, Senior Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine CoastSusan Rayment-McHugh, Lecturer in Criminology and Justice & Co-Leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1265102019-11-12T19:05:00Z2019-11-12T19:05:00ZVictims of child sex abuse still face significant legal barriers suing churches - here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301176/original/file-20191112-178506-xaxjxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even with the National Redress Scheme, pursuing justice through civil litigation is still hugely important to many victims of priest sex abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Crosling/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a>, we are witnessing a wave of legal reforms across Australia aimed at helping survivors seek justice. </p>
<p>Most visibly, there is the <a href="https://www.nationalredress.gov.au/">National Redress Scheme</a>, which provides victims access to counselling, a response from the institution where they were abused and payment of up to $150,000.</p>
<p>But for those who slip through the cracks of the scheme, as well as future victims, pursuing justice through civil litigation is still hugely important. </p>
<p>As traumatising as legal action can be, suing is not just a means to access compensation. It can also provide formal legal recognition of the abuse, and is a powerful way to hold the institution directly accountable.</p>
<h2>Legal hurdles for victims suing institutions</h2>
<p>Historically, there have been several legal roadblocks for victims trying to sue the organisations where they were abused.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Statutes of limitations can prevent lawsuits if it takes many years for victims to acknowledge the abuse and take action.</p></li>
<li><p>It can also be hard to identify a legal entity to sue, given that many religious institutions are unincorporated. This hurdle is commonly known as the “Ellis defence”, after the case brought by an altar boy against the Catholic Church that <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/sexual-abuse-victim-john-ellis-resumes-battle-with-cardinal-george-pell-20140309-34fga.html">failed for this reason</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>For an organisation to be held responsible for abuse, victims must establish a close connection between the abuser and institution. Institutional responsibility for employees’ wrongful actions – known as “<a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/current-justices/kiefelj/KiefelCJ25Aug2017.pdf">vicarious liability</a>” – typically covers carelessness in the workplace but doesn’t usually extend to serious criminal acts like assault. (A separate issue: historically recognised duties owed by schools and hospitals are also not owed by other organisations like churches.)</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301200/original/file-20191112-178494-t3o78e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Victim John Ellis speaking before the start of the royal commission into child sex abuse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Miller/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the royal commission identified these barriers in a 2014 <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/redress-and-civil-litigation">report on redress and civil litigation</a>, states and territories have begun introducing new laws to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/sa-removes-time-limits-for-child-abuse-compensation/10270016">change their statutes of limitations</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-01/catholic-church-ellis-defence-scrapped-from-new-years-day/10675890">bypass the Ellis defence</a>. </p>
<p>However, addressing the legal responsibility of institutions for the actions of individual perpetrators has proven more complex.</p>
<h2>The confusion over liability in Victoria</h2>
<p>Some states are moving forward with legal reforms in this area. NSW, for instance, <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/acts/2018-56.pdf">overhauled its laws</a> last year to <a href="https://www.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/media-news/media-releases/2018/justice-for-child-abuse-survivors.aspx">extend vicarious liability</a> to include non-employees like volunteers or religious officers who take advantage of their positions to carry out child abuse.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1052521885928288257"}"></div></p>
<p>Tasmania <a href="http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/bills/pdf/36_of_2019.pdf">has now introduced a bill</a> taking a similar approach. Several other jurisdictions – ACT, WA and SA – have yet to take any action on this issue. They are still responding to the royal commission’s recommendations, so further legislation may be forthcoming.</p>
<p>Victoria, meanwhile, has taken a different approach that is leaving some victims behind. (It’s a model that <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/whole/html/asmade/act-2019-034">Queensland has also recently adopted</a>, with a bill that passed into law last month.) </p>
<p>Victoria’s law is especially disappointing given the state actually led the way with legal reforms to help victims of child sex abuse, based on a <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/fcdc/article/1788">700-page report</a> by a parliamentary inquiry that was set up before the royal commission. </p>
<p>The Victorian report looked in detail at the legal hurdles that victims face, but its recommendations showed a misunderstanding of the law when it comes to the liability of institutions where abuse occurs. </p>
<p>Specifically, it misunderstood how vicarious liability works.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-royal-commissions-final-report-has-landed-now-to-make-sure-there-is-an-adequate-redress-scheme-89158">The royal commission's final report has landed – now to make sure there is an adequate redress scheme</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is vicarious liability?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/quick-guide/12107">Vicarious liability</a> is a form of strict liability under which an employer can be held responsible for the actions of employees regardless of fault. This is so even when it has taken all reasonable steps to prevent the misconduct. </p>
<p>For example, a bus company may be liable for harm to passengers caused by a careless bus driver, even when it did everything it could to encourage safe driving. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://jade.io/article/68410">previous court decisions</a> have suggested it wasn’t possible for employers like schools to be held vicariously liable for the abuse of children by teachers. The reason: such liability doesn’t usually extend to serious criminal acts because they weren’t committed within the “course of employment”. </p>
<p>Victoria’s child sex abuse report recommended fixing this legal complexity by importing a model from discrimination law. </p>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/employers/vicarious-liability">model</a>, an organisation is <em>presumed</em> to be responsible for the acts of its employees but can escape liability by showing it took reasonable care to avoid the wrongful conduct.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-is-investigating-george-pells-case-what-does-that-mean-113187">The Catholic Church is investigating George Pell's case. What does that mean?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Eager to remove the barriers faced by child sex abuse victims, the Victorian government <a href="https://www.justice.vic.gov.au/safer-communities/protecting-children-and-families/betrayal-of-trust-fact-sheet-the-new">changed its laws</a> in 2017 to import the new model. But it ignored two key developments that happened while the new law was being debated in parliament.</p>
<p>First, the royal commission provided a more thorough analysis of the laws and recommended imposing strict liability on specific kinds of institutions responsible for the care, supervision or control of children.</p>
<p>Second, in 2016, a High Court case involving child sexual abuse at a boarding school,
<a href="https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/opinionsonhigh/2016/10/05/prince-alfred-college-case-page/">Prince Alfred College v ADC</a>, signalled an entirely new approach courts will take with regard to vicarious liability in such cases. </p>
<p>The High Court stated that if an employer puts an employee in a position of trust, power and the ability to achieve intimacy with a victim, the organisation will be held liable if the employee takes advantage of the situation to abuse a child. </p>
<p>The High Court’s new approach also has its gaps. Victims who were abused by a contractor rather than an employee might struggle to establish vicarious liability. We’re also yet to see whether courts consider clergy as employees for this purpose.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301202/original/file-20191112-178525-f85q2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A victim of abuse at a private Brisbane school after giving evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Peled/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More reforms are needed</h2>
<p>Victorian MPs <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/daily-hansard/Assembly_2016/Assembly_Daily_Extract_Wednesday_23_November_2016_from_Book_16.pdf">saw the state’s new laws</a> as “balancing the interests” of organisations and victims of abuse. They also believed the laws avoided placing “undue burden” on organisations by allowing them to escape liability if they have taken reasonable care. </p>
<p>But this ignored the courts’ new approach to vicarious liability and the fact that strict liability may still apply to organisations that took reasonable care. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the government has done a disservice to survivors of child abuse and made the legal situation murkier rather than clearer for organisations and victims alike.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that Victoria – and other states and territories – still need further reform in this area if they really want to help victims of institutional child abuse achieve justice in the courts.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This story has been amended since publication to correct that the Queensland bill has now passed.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This story is adapted from a forthcoming article in the UNSW Law Journal by Laura Griffin and Gemma Briffa.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Griffin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Addressing the legal responsibility of institutions for the actions of abusers has proven incredibly complex. Victoria thought it was making things easier for victims, but the opposite is true.Laura Griffin, Lecturer, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1216162019-09-25T20:42:36Z2019-09-25T20:42:36ZFive charts on Catholic school enrolments: they’re trending down while Australia’s population booms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293718/original/file-20190924-54775-ghthn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C633%2C2986%2C1297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catholic secondary schools experienced significant growth prior to 2015, but since then, enrolments have stagnated.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent months, one of Victoria’s oldest Catholic girls’ schools, Presentation College, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-30/presentation-college-windsor-catholic-girls-school-to-close/11364188">announced it was closing</a> down, citing falling enrolments. Other <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/st-bedes-college-mentone-and-st-james-college-east-bentleigh-to-merge-in-2021/news-story/e5004f9cbc3251bb1c5a2f503fe34619">Catholic schools</a> have decided to merge together, some also pointing to dwindling enrolments.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Australia is in the midst of a population boom with new schools being built and <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4221.0Main+Features12018?OpenDocument">overall enrolment numbers</a> on the rise. So, are enrolments in Catholic schools going down across the country, and if so, why?</p>
<h2>Enrolment numbers over the last decade</h2>
<p>School enrolments across Australia are, overall, trending upwards. Our calculations show <a href="https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-portal">enrolments increased</a> by nearly 12% from 2009-2018, representing around 409,000 extra students across all schools. If the current trend continues, four million students will be studying in Australian schools by 2022. </p>
<p>The trends show government and independent schools are becoming more popular than Catholic schools.</p>
<p>As the graph below shows, government primary school enrolments steadily increased until 2014. There was a fall in 2015, but then the numbers kept climbing. Government secondary school enrolments showed no similar lull, steadily increasing over the last four years. </p>
<hr>
<iframe title="Government school enrolments (primary and secondary)" aria-label="Interactive line chart" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1BONq/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border: none;" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
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<p>The trend for independent schools was similar to that of government schools. The only difference is that independent schools generally have higher enrolments in secondary schools than in primary, as parents are more likely to make the choice to transition to an independent school in the secondary years.</p>
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<p>Catholic primary school enrolments increased until 2014, then dropped slightly in 2015, like the government and independent school enrolments. However, Catholic primary enrolments didn’t recover and have remained reasonably stagnant since 2015.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-why-catholic-primary-school-parents-can-afford-to-pay-more-102643">Three charts on: why Catholic primary school parents can afford to pay more</a>
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<p>Catholic secondary schools have been on a slight <a href="https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-porta">downward trajectory</a> from 2016, with a loss of 1,798 students in the last two years.</p>
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<p>The difference in primary and secondary student enrolments from 2014-2015, in part, reflects <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4221.0Explanatory%20Notes12015?OpenDocument">changing definitions</a> of primary and secondary students in Western Australia and Queensland. The trend is mirrored in secondary schools where enrolments went up between the two years.</p>
<h2>Enrolments increasing, but slower for Catholic schools</h2>
<p>Government schools <a href="https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-portal">saw enrolments grow</a> by 11% between 2009 and 2018 – an increase of around 260,000 students. Independent school enrolments grew by around 17% (84,600 new students) while Catholic school enrolments grew by only 8%, which accounted for around 61,000 new students.</p>
<p>As a share of the total enrolment growth, government schools accounted for around 64%, Catholic schools for 15% and independent schools 21%. </p>
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<p>Government schools experienced significant growth from 2011. There was a decrease in extra student numbers between 2017 and 18, but the overall trend is up. Independent schools have maintained similar enrolment levels with a noticeable increase in enrolments over the last two years. But Catholic school enrolment growth steadily decreased each year since 2013.</p>
<p>In 2017 and 2018, Australian Catholic schools had a net decrease of 180 and 1,135 students respectively. Victoria and Queensland are the only jurisdictions that have experienced increases over the same period, with 839 and 1,153 additional enrolments respectively.</p>
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<h2>Why is this happening?</h2>
<p>So, what’s driving the overall downturn in Catholic school enrolments? There has been <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/enrolments-in-catholic-schools-fall-as-independent-schools-grow-20190308-p512ud.html">some speculation</a>, such as from the NSW Teachers Federation, it may be due to fallout from the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into child sex abuse</a> (which ran from 2013 until the final report’s release in December, 2017).</p>
<p>But the data also indicate enrolment patterns may be driven by broader demographic and social trends. New migrants may be partly responsible. Over the last ten years Australia has experienced a <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3412.0Main+Features12017-18?OpenDocument">net overseas migration</a> of more than two million people. </p>
<p>Analysis of <a href="http://isca.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-changing-face-of-Australian-schooling_FINAL_web.pdf">census data shows</a> students who arrive in Australia in the three years before the census date are most likely to go to a government school. In 2016, 77% of these students attended a government school.</p>
<p>Fewer of these students attend Catholic schools, with enrolments dropping from 12% in 2011, to 9% in 2016 among migrant groups. Migrant enrolments in independent schools have remained steady over those five years.</p>
<p>For many parents, the decision about which school their children will attend can be complex and dependent on many factors. Most of the <a href="https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/225639">research on school choice</a> shows families typically exercise this choice at the secondary school level.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-im-choosing-the-local-state-school-even-though-it-doesnt-have-all-the-bells-and-whistles-48154">Why I'm choosing the local state school – even though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles</a>
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<p>The key factors influencing parents when choosing a particular government primary school is the convenience of its location and whether other family members are at the school. </p>
<p><a href="https://aifs.gov.au/media-releases/parents-primary-school-choice-about-more-academic-results">Research</a> on school choice shows parents of children attending an independent school most frequently referred to academic results as the motivating factor behind their decision to send their child there. For Catholic schools, it was the religious values. </p>
<p>More Australian families are identifying as having “no religion”. Since 2006, students in the “no religion” category have increased, and those with a Catholic affiliation have decreased, <a href="http://isca.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-changing-face-of-Australian-schooling_FINAL_web.pdf">from 30% to 27% respectively</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-australia-becomes-less-religious-our-parliament-becomes-more-so-80456">As Australia becomes less religious, our parliament becomes more so</a>
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<p>Of course, many families choose schools based on financial considerations. Recent analysis by the ANZ shows mid-tier private schools (which charge between A$10,000 and A$20,000 a year in tuition fees) <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/private-school-enrolments-slump-as-parents-feel-economic-pinch-20190914-p52rba.html">saw a drop in enrolments</a> in 2017 and 2018. </p>
<p>These families may be opting for so-called “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-lesson-in-location-20090530-gdtk7o.html">magnet schools</a>” which are high performing government schools where parents move to the catchment area to increase their chances of admission. This shows parents make strategic choices within school sectors as well as between them. </p>
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<p><em>Note: Data was sourced from the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4221.0">ABS</a> and <a href="https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-portal">ACARA</a> and may not correspond with annual data released by school system authorities. However the overall trends are the same.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoran Endekov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia is in the midst of a population boom. But Catholic school enrolments have been decreasing since 2013.Zoran Endekov, Education Policy Fellow, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1179812019-06-04T07:26:05Z2019-06-04T07:26:05ZMedia Files: Investigative reporter Louise Milligan on Cardinal Pell and redactions in the Royal Commission’s report<p>Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against child sexual assault convictions kicks off this week, but when that’s over Pell still has another reckoning to face: the unredacted findings of Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.</p>
<p>When the royal commission handed down its massive report in late 2017, several sections were redacted until after any legal proceedings against Cardinal Pell were concluded. </p>
<p>In this episode of Media Files, Matthew Ricketson talks with ABC investgative reporter Louise Milligan – author of <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/authors/louise-milligan">Cardinal: the rise and fall of George Pell</a> – about the issues and incidents the royal commission investigated.</p>
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<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/7anl">here</a> to listen to Media Files on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Media Files.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/media-files/id1434250621?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL21lZGlhZmlsZXMucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
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<h2>Additional credits</h2>
<p>Producer: Andy Hazel.</p>
<p>Theme music: Susie Wilkins.</p>
<h2>Image</h2>
<p>David Crosling/AAP</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ricketson is chair of the board of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, Asia-Pacific, which has done work to support journalists who have reported extensively on child sexual abuse. </span></em></p>When the royal commission handed down its massive report in late 2017, several sections were redacted until after any legal proceedings against Cardinal Pell were concluded.Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1129542019-03-07T00:52:44Z2019-03-07T00:52:44ZNational Redress Scheme for child sexual abuse protects institutions at the expense of justice for survivors<p>Australians can be proud of what the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accomplished, but they cannot be proud of the National Redress Scheme (NRS).</p>
<p>With the Joint Select Committee’s review of the NRS set to be released in the coming weeks, it’s important to look back on how the NRS emerged and the ways it strayed from the recommendations of the royal commission. </p>
<p>In September 2015, the royal commission released its <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/final_report_-_redress_and_civil_litigation.pdf">report</a> on redress and civil litigation. It proposed a redress scheme with three elements: a direct personal response, counselling and psychological care, and a monetary payment. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-report-makes-preventing-institutional-sexual-abuse-a-national-responsibility-88564">Royal commission report makes preventing institutional sexual abuse a national responsibility</a>
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<p>And it set forth principles to guide redress, such as being “survivor-focused” by providing justice to survivors and not protecting the interests of institutions.</p>
<p>On June 19 2018, the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6101">NRS bill passed</a> with bipartisan support in both houses of parliament, but it did not adhere to these principles, nor reflect the spirit of what the royal commission had recommended. </p>
<p>Protecting the interests of institutions ultimately prevailed over providing justice to survivors.</p>
<p>So how and why did this happen?</p>
<h2>Creating a national scheme</h2>
<p>Creating a national scheme was a complicated exercise. To do so, Australian states had to refer their legislative power for redress to the Commonwealth. Without state referral, non-Commonwealth institutions – both government and non-government – could not participate.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth began negotiating with the states in January 2016. In November that year, then Attorney-General George Brandis and then Minister for Social Services Christian Porter issued a <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/4914812%22">press release</a> announcing that a Commonwealth Redress Scheme (CRS) would be established. </p>
<p>The release said the maximum payment would be $150,000, not the $200,000 figure the royal commission had recommended. </p>
<p>That day, Porter held a <a href="https://formerministers.dss.gov.au/17436/press-conference-national-redress-scheme/">press conference</a> where he was asked to explain why the maximum was reduced. He said: </p>
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<p>we have had intensive negotiations with the states and territories, and with churches and charities. And we were trying to design a monetary redress payment that offered appropriate recognition, but maximised our opportunity to get other organisations to opt-in to the scheme. </p>
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<p>In October 2017, the CRS bill was <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6006">introduced into parliament</a>. The government’s strategy was to move the bill along while at the same time encouraging states and non-government institutions to opt-in to the scheme. If no states did so by July 1 2018, the scheme would be for survivors of abuse in Commonwealth institutions only.</p>
<p>That day, Porter was asked on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/govt-to-release-details-of-institutional-abuse-redress-scheme/9087126">ABC radio</a> why people with convictions for sexual offences or other serious crimes were not eligible for the scheme. Porter explained that the decision was made in “deep consultation” with state attorneys-general who were of the “almost unanimous” view that to “give integrity and public confidence to the scheme”, there needed to be limitations for those who “had committed serious crimes, particularly sexual offences”. </p>
<p>The exclusion was a condition for the states to opt-in, and a “powerful reason why [the] decision was made”, according to Porter. </p>
<p>In the same interview, he dropped another bombshell: counselling and psychological care would be capped at $5,000 per person. No explanation was given. The royal commission did not recommend a criminal history exclusion nor a cap on counselling.</p>
<p>As the CRS bill moved through parliament, media stories and submissions to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee focused on the reduced maximum payment, criminal history exclusion, and cap on counselling. <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/AbuseRedressScheme/Final_Report">Concerns were also raised</a> that the scheme was for sexual abuse only, and that important scheme details were to be contained in delegated legislation, or what is also termed “the rules”. This meant the minister would announce them at a future date, and they would not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny or debate.</p>
<p>Two crucial elements in the delegated legislation were the Assessment Framework and the Direct Personal Response Framework. <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2018L00969">The Assessment Framework</a> assesses both the monetary payment and monetary support for counselling and psychological care. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2018L00970">Direct Personal Response Framework</a> outlines a limited number of ways a responsible institution may engage with a survivor, including an apology or statement of regret, and steps taken to prevent abuse in the future. </p>
<p>It was not until August 13 2018, two months after the passage of the NRS, that these frameworks were tabled by the minister. Both departed strongly from what the royal commission had recommended.</p>
<p>The shift from a Commonwealth to a national scheme occurred in May 2018, when a <a href="https://www.coag.gov.au/about-coag/agreements/intergovernmental-agreement-national-redress-scheme-institutional-child-sexual">COAG intergovernmental agreement</a> on the NRS was signed by New South Wales and the ACT. New South Wales introduced legislation referring the power to make laws about redress to the Commonwealth. </p>
<p>Later that month, the NRS bill was <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6101">introduced into federal parliament</a>. A Senate review in March had called attention to gaps between what the Royal Commission had recommended and what was in the CRS bill. The NRS bill maintained and, at times, widened these gaps.</p>
<h2>The widening gaps between the royal commission and the NRS</h2>
<p>We identified 17 contentious matters in the NRS bill. </p>
<p>Five matters that received considerable attention were the maximum monetary payment, criminal history exclusion, cap on counselling, assessment framework, and the eligibility of sexual abuse only. </p>
<p>But 12 others were just as consequential. </p>
<p>They related to government and institutional responsibilities (funder of last resort and institutional opt-in timeframe); application and payment requirements (single application, indexation of payment, acceptance period, deed of release, lack of external review); other eligibility criteria (no application from gaol, citizenship and residency, age limit); scheme reporting; and the direct personal response.</p>
<p>All 17 matters departed from what the royal commission recommended except three: the eligibility of sexual abuse only, indexation of payment, and no external review. </p>
<p>The pressure points for the departures were economic and political costs to government and non-government participants, and to a lesser degree, the convenience of the scheme operator. </p>
<p>As the NRS legislation moved toward passage in June 2018, <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/20055de3-ef7b-4bac-8354-24f8264a64fa/toc_pdf/Senate_2018_06_18_6230_Official.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">many politicians said</a> it was “imperfect”, but they would support it. Such support was often couched in pro-survivor rhetoric. For example, <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/20055de3-ef7b-4bac-8354-24f8264a64fa/toc_pdf/Senate_2018_06_18_6230_Official.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">Senator Louise Pratt said</a>: </p>
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<p>Survivors have in some instances waited all their lives for justice, and they should not have to wait a minute longer. </p>
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<p>In fact, politicians’ hands were tied: they could not change the bill because this would require renegotiating the framework of redress decided by members of the state and federal executive. Such delay would jeopardise the Commonwealth’s promised start date of July 1 2018.</p>
<p>We want to see a fair and effective redress scheme. To make that happen, elements in the current scheme will need to change.</p>
<p>But is there any hope for change? Perhaps.</p>
<p>A bipartisan <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Royal_Commission_into_Institutional_Responses_to_Child_Sexual_Abuse/RoyalCommissionChildAbuse">Joint Select Committee</a> (JSC) on the Oversight of the Implementation of Redress Related Recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been receiving submissions and holding hearings over the past five months. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-abuse-survivors-and-advocates-to-clear-the-way-to-a-national-redress-scheme-90925">Listen to abuse survivors and advocates to clear the way to a national redress scheme</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Royal_Commission_into_Institutional_Responses_to_Child_Sexual_Abuse/RoyalCommissionChildAbuse/Public_Hearings">JSC has learned</a> that survivors are having many problems applying to the scheme and understanding how best to present their case. Witnesses to the JSC and committee members themselves have expressed disbelief about the Assessment Framework: it privileges penetrative sexual abuse above all other types, and it caps the monetary support for counselling based on the type of abuse. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Royal_Commission_into_Institutional_Responses_to_Child_Sexual_Abuse/RoyalCommissionChildAbuse/Submissions">provided evidence</a> to the JSC of the many ways the NRS departs from the royal commission’s principles of redress. </p>
<p>We also provided evidence of how poorly the scheme compares with other world redress schemes in the ways it assesses the severity and impact of abuse, supports counselling, and excludes certain groups. Compared to numerous examples that the royal commission offered for the direct personal response, the NRS stuck to a bare minimum and severely weakened the power of this innovative redress element. </p>
<p>Will the JSC report, delivered in early April, produce findings that make politicians, the media, and the public take notice? </p>
<p>The timing is not optimal with a federal election looming and other matters taking greater precedence. Post-election, let’s hope that the failure of the NRS to provide justice to survivors receives the attention it deserves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Daly receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She was affiliated with the Independent Advisory Council on Redress. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juliet Davis receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>A year after it was introduced, the National Redress Scheme has strayed a long way from the recommendations of the royal commission.Kathleen Daly, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith UniversityJuliet Davis, Research Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122152019-02-22T05:29:57Z2019-02-22T05:29:57Z#MeToo catches up with spiritual healers: the case of Brazil’s John of God<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260058/original/file-20190220-148523-gsq03w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of women have accused John of God of sexual assault.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtsNfy1eVMA">60 minutes screenshot</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’ve seen countless spiritual leaders and religious institutions embroiled in sexual abuse scandals around the globe. Most people are familiar with the scandals in the Catholic Church and other mainstream religious groups. But there have also been scandals in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2016/09/15/swami-akhandananda-saraswati-sexually-abused-and-raped-children-australias-oldest">Ashrams</a>, and <a href="https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/death-eido-roshi-metoo/">Zen</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/09/tibetan-buddhism-facing-abuse-scandal/">Tibetan Buddhist</a> groups.</p>
<p>The latest scandal involves the Brazilian faith healer João Teixeira de Faria, known as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/john-of-god-9780190466718?cc=au&lang=en&">João de Deus</a> (John of God), who in the past two decades has become a global guru for hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. Even celebrities such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urddmg0FS7g">Oprah Winfrey</a> and performance artist <a href="https://mai.art/thespaceinbetween/">Marina Abramovic</a> have visited and promoted him (before the scandal).</p>
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<p>John of God claims to be an unconscious medium for spirits who heal through him. He rose to fame due to his remarkable healing methods – he performs actual physical surgery without anaesthesia. Pilgrims don’t seem to develop infections and many report a cure of their symptoms after seeing him. </p>
<p>In her book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/john-of-god-9780190466718?cc=au&lang=en&">John Of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing</a>, the co-author of this article, Cristina Rocha, interviewed Westerners who visited John of God. They told her they were seeking not only physical but also emotional and spiritual healing. Many said the experiences at the healing centre were a turning point, which made them believe in the power of the supernatural and changed their lives.</p>
<p>During the decade-long research, Rocha heard rumours about the sexual abuse of women but nothing was ever substantiated. Previous investigations resulted in no convictions.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-is-headed-for-another-sex-abuse-scandal-as-nunstoo-speak-up-111539">The Catholic Church is headed for another sex abuse scandal as #NunsToo speak up</a>
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<p>Everything changed in early December, 2018 when <a href="https://globoplay.globo.com/v/7218772/">13 women told stories of being sexually abused</a> by de Faria in an explosive interview on Brazilian prime-time TV. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/12/joao-teixeira-de-faria-brazil-medium-healer-sexual-abuse">Many more women</a> disclosed their abuse to Brazilian police. So far, around 600 Brazilian and foreign women and young girls have described similar experiences of sexual abuse, including rape allegations.</p>
<p>It’s been reported that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39523/more-details-john-god-scandal-emerge-cache-weapons-james-barrett">police found</a> unregistered weapons and around US$400,000 in several currencies hidden in de Faria’s home, in addition to around US$10 million in bank accounts. Allegations have also surfaced of the imprisonment of <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/2019/01/14/11/39/john-of-god-news-australia-sold-babies-allegation">poor young women</a> who were paid to bear babies for adoption overseas. de Faria denies the allegations.</p>
<p>John of God <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46585542">surrendered himself to police</a> in December and has been remanded in custody since the investigations began. Court cases are likely to follow.</p>
<h2>The power of spiritual leaders</h2>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/religious-institutions">royal commission into child sex abuse</a> exposed that children and other vulnerable groups were far more likely to be sexually abused in religious and spiritual settings. We also know victims often don’t report abuse for fear of retaliation and deep shame. Those who did report their abuse were often not believed and punished further.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260361/original/file-20190222-195864-zcoaa4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Some John of God followers are skeptical of the allegations against him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/JohnOfGodLive/posts/2196346957153631">Facebook (screenshot, name concealed)</a></span>
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<p>In some cases, even after religious and spiritual leaders are found guilty, many <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/fears-unrest-indian-guru-convicted-rape-ram-rahim-singh-panchkula">followers have a hard time believing</a> the man whom they trusted and was holy in their eyes was actually a sexual predator. </p>
<p>Many foreign followers of John of God have been sceptical of the allegations. This may be because the tour guides who take groups to see the him have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JohnOfGodLive/posts/2196346957153631">downplayed the scandal</a> on social media.</p>
<p>Spiritual organisations are largely patriarchal and hierarchical and there is little or no transparency and accountability. This makes sexual abuse perpetrated by spiritual leaders particularly problematic.</p>
<p>Spiritual leaders such as de Faria tend to be charismatic and are seen as having special powers derived from supernatural sources. They are treated with reverence, often feared and understood as extraordinary men. So, they command a double authority; first as men and second as otherworldly due to their connection to the supernatural. </p>
<p>After witnessing one of de Faria’s surgeries, one follower told Rocha: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is what I said to myself, ‘This is what Jesus did.’ He was divine power, divine healing incarnate. He used himself to deliver this type of energy people needed. When I saw that, I was like, ‘This is my place. He will heal me’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The charisma of the leader makes victims believe they are chosen and given special status. This creates a powerful emotional attachment to the spiritual leader, which can put them at risk of manipulation and abuse. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/john-of-god-my-encounter-with-brazils-accused-faith-healer-109312">John of God: my encounter with Brazil's accused faith healer</a>
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<p>They may doubt the truth of their own experiences of abuse (they may think they are not holy enough to understand what is happening to them). They may fear being ostracised by the religious community or the wrath of the supernatural world. </p>
<p>The royal commission <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2021%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Satyananda%20Yoga%20Ashram%20-%20Day%20104%20-%2002122014.pdf">heard evidence</a> that a spiritual leader “can look into a person’s soul and know exactly what is right for them”, including using sexual force as part of a what the leader may claim to be a necessary path to spiritual enlightenment.</p>
<p>Women who were allegedly abused by John of God reported he told them sexual contact was a way to heal them and they would be cursed if they were to reject his requests.</p>
<h2>What should we do about it?</h2>
<p>The arrest of John of God, and the discovery of the extent of the abuse among women and children, is a wake-up call to further investigate the ways in which spiritual leaders and their groups operate outside the bounds of organisational accountability and transparency. </p>
<p>One immediate way forward is for governments to introduce laws that regulate the bureaucratic practices of such organisations through instituting professional standards, criminalising non-disclosure. Appropriate staff training and ensuring mandatory reporting protocols for all staff should also be instituted.</p>
<p>This would send a strong signal and draw a clear line about what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour by all leaders in such positions of power, and crucially make an immediate difference to the safety of women and children in spiritual organisations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristina Rocha receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (AASR).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips receives funding from the Australian Research Theology Foundation. She is Voice-President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (AASR). </span></em></p>Brazil’s John of God is a “spiritual healer” who performs surgeries without anaesthesia. Millions have experienced his unique healing methods, but now hundreds of women say he sexually abused them.Cristina Rocha, Director of Religion and Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney UniversityKathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1115392019-02-15T02:08:30Z2019-02-15T02:08:30ZThe Catholic Church is headed for another sex abuse scandal as #NunsToo speak up<p>All eyes will turn to Rome <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/12/pope-francis-summons-senior-bishops-summit-clerical-sexual-abuse">between 21-24 February</a>, when senior church clerics across the world meet to discuss how to handle the widening sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Until recently, this has been focused on the abuse of children. But now Pope Francis has admitted – for the first time – sexual abuse by priests against religious women exists and must be acknowledged. </p>
<p>And Catholic women are speaking out, under the #NunsToo hashtag.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years ago, Irish nun, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/the-irish-woman-who-exposed-abuse-of-nuns-by-priests-25-years-ago-1.3788555">Maura O'Donohue</a> prepared an extensive report for the Vatican on the abuse of nuns internationally by priests. Her report was based on information supplied by priests, doctors and others, and she had been assured records existed for several of the incidents. But the report was covered up.</p>
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<p>In late November, influenced by the success of the #MeToo movement, a group of women theologians <a href="https://voicesoffaith.org/event/">convened a meeting</a> – called Voices of Faith – in Rome to share their stories of sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of male clerics, and decry the patriarchy of the Catholic hierarchy. </p>
<p>Doris Wagner, a German theologian, recalled her terror as a young woman in a mixed-gender religious order. A superior of the order entered her room one night and raped her. She knew if she were to report this, <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/preview/women-survivors-speak-church-authority-structure-facilitating-their-abuse">she would be told</a> it was her fault, so she kept quiet. Years later, she did tell her superior, who did <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/former-nun-claims-cdf-official-made-sexual-advances-on-her-during-confession/8982">exactly as she feared</a> – she blamed her, and asked if she had used contraceptives. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-whats-the-difference-93411">Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment: what’s the difference?</a>
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<p>Wagner said she was later groomed by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vactican-sexual-abuse-catholic-church-hermann-geissler-resigns-allegations-a8753861.html">priest Hermann Geissler</a>. He worked in the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the Vatican organisation that deals with complaints of child sexual abuse. This led to a series of <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/former-nun-claims-cdf-official-made-sexual-advances-on-her-during-confession/8982">sexual assaults in the confessional</a>, which she reported.</p>
<p>Geissler was found to have acted inappropriately but was not removed from his job, despite working on child sex abuse cases. He was publicly outed and resigned only after Wagner disclosed the story at the meeting in Rome last year. But the <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/former-nun-claims-cdf-official-made-sexual-advances-on-her-during-confession/8982">priest who committed the rape</a> is still ordained and living in a religious community with young women. </p>
<p>Wagner also <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/former-nun-claims-cdf-official-made-sexual-advances-on-her-during-confession/8982">read from a report</a> that estimated up to 30% of Catholic sisters had been sexually abused and many more are at risk of clerical sexual abuse. </p>
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<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/forgotten-victims-of-priest-sexual-abuse-they-were-not-children-but-could-they-consent-20181206-p50knj.html">reports suggest</a> the number of Catholic women abused by priests vastly outnumber the survivors of child sexual abuse uncovered by the royal commission into the issue. These women and men often came from strict religious families, and had little experience of the world or sexual matters. </p>
<p>As this group finds its voice and begins to speak out, the leadership of the Church will face <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002cfj">another crisis of legitimacy</a> and round of public inquiries.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-hearings-show-catholic-church-faces-a-massive-reform-task-72809">Royal commission hearings show Catholic Church faces a massive reform task</a>
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<p>It is clear the sexual abuse of women, children and vulnerable adults has been normalised in Catholic clerical culture. Abuse is exercised at every level of ministry, from parish priest to the most senior clerics. Perpetrators are protected and victims silenced. This is aided by a culture of clerical entitlement and opportunity.</p>
<p>The child sex abuse royal commission’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/religious-institutions">final report</a> provided ample evidence of this. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Few survivors of child sexual abuse that occurred before the 1990s described receiving any formal response from the relevant Catholic Church authority when they reported the abuse. Instead, they were often disbelieved, ignored or punished, and in some cases were further abused.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recently, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/07/archbishop-of-lyon-cardinal-philippe-barbarin-goes-on-trial-accused-of-helping-cover-up-abuse">number of international cases</a> have seen very senior Catholic clerics accused of protecting perpetrators of child sexual abuse. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/08/14/pennsylvania-grand-jury-report-on-sex-abuse-in-catholic-church-will-list-hundreds-of-accused-predator-priests/?utm_term=.9e4bfa7222de">Philadelphia Grand Jury</a> recently found Church leaders protected more than 300 priest perpetrators. Australia’s royal commission also <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/religious-institutions">noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the avoidance of public scandal, the maintenance of the reputation of the Catholic Church and loyalty to priests… largely determined the responses of Catholic Church authorities when allegations of child sexual abuse arose… Complaints of child sexual abuse were not reported to police or other civil authorities…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are also cases of high-level clerical sexual abusers, including serial offender US <a href="https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2019/02/10/a-simple-defrocking-wont-mean-the-mccarrick-case-is-over/">Cardinal Theodore McCarrick</a>, who is now being defrocked, and <a href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/01/22/what-the-bishop-zanchetta-case-tells-us-about-church-leadership/">Argentian bishop Gustavo Zanchetta</a>, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with young seminarians. Pope Francis’ response was to remove Zanchetta from Argentina and <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/magazine/a-cancer-that-goes-untreated/">promote him to a position of power</a> in the Vatican’s finance office.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259211/original/file-20190215-1726-dhaagz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nuns have kept quiet about sexual abuse for far too long.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Francis has not adequately handled a number of crises. This includes last year, when he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/11/pope-francis-chile-bishops-sexual-abuse-scandal">defended a Chilean bishop</a> who had covered up cases of child sexual abuse. As US feminist theologian <a href="https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches/2019/02/05/vatican-sexual-abuse-meeting-is-destined-to-fail-to-stop-the-problem-or-the-decline/">Mary Hunt</a> says, “you can’t make this stuff up”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/george-pell-and-the-requirement-for-the-mandatory-reporting-of-sex-predator-priests-8048">George Pell and the requirement for the mandatory reporting of sex predator priests</a>
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<p>Little information has been provided about the agenda for the upcoming, so-called “protection of minors in the Church” meeting in late February. But it’s <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-01/holy-see-press-office-meeting-protection-minors-communique.html">clear there will be</a> no survivors, lay women or men in attendance – just the bishops, senior Vatican officials and Pope Francis. </p>
<p>This is the cohort who has protected priest perpetrators, covered up hundreds of cases, failed to report criminal activity to the police, blamed victims and promoted the guilty to positions of power. It is clear the answers to this catastrophic problem will not come from Church leaders. Instead, it is victims, survivors, lay people and experts in institutional change that need to be leading the dialogue, and enacting change. And one such group may be the <a href="https://mailchi.mp/1d608c675d26/the-women-making-waves-for-real-change-in-the-catholic-churchs-sexual-abuse-crisis?e=70ade7b9b2">Voices of Faith</a>.</p>
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<p><em>This article previously referred to the group “Voices of Faith” as “Voices of Change”. This has now been fixed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111539/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips receives funding from the Australian Research Theology Foundation.</span></em></p>Twenty-five years ago, an Irish nun handed a report to the Catholic Church that detailed sexual abuse against nuns by priests worldwide. It was ignored. But now nuns are finally sharing their stories.Kathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1070162018-11-15T07:01:20Z2018-11-15T07:01:20ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Derryn Hinch on a national ICAC and the Victorian election<p>The Senate this week passed a motion calling for the government to establish a federal anti-corruption commission. The government is more likely to beef up existing institutions but Justice Party senator Derryn Hinch, who has been a strong advocate for a national ICAC, says “that would be wrong.” “We have to have an independent national body to look into us [politicians] and to public servants and to various agencies,” he told The Conversation. </p>
<p>Hinch - who is long odds in his battle to hold his seat at the election - is running candidates in the Victorian state election. He hopes to get “one or two” of his team elected to the upper house.</p>
<p>In Victoria he predicts a Labor win, although he doesn’t “think they deserve to.” Federally, he says “I would be one of the few people in this building who still thinks the Libs are in with a chance”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government is more likely to beef up existing institutions but Derryn Hinch, who has been a strong advocate for a national ICAC, says "that would be wrong."Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1043952018-10-22T03:40:43Z2018-10-22T03:40:43ZWhy children in institutional care may be worse off now than they were in the 19th century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241566/original/file-20181022-105782-1tsuu8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">National apologies for abuse are important, but children in institutional care also need better support transitioning to adulthood.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-national-apology-to-victims-of-institutional-child-sexual-abuse-matters-heres-why-104767">national apology</a> to the victims of child sexual abuse was a moment of reckoning for the government – an admission of the country’s failures to protect children from abuse in institutions ranging from churches and schools to orphanages and foster homes.</p>
<p>We too often hear about child protection when there is a scandal or crisis. For young people who grow up in out-of-home care, however, we need to go beyond simply reacting to terrible incidents like these and focus more attention on whether our systems are delivering the outcomes they should on a daily basis and for the long-term benefit of young people. </p>
<h2>Rectifying failures of the system time and again</h2>
<p>A series of national inquiries has found that hundreds of thousands of children have suffered lifelong consequences due to the failures of the country’s child protection policies.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/bringing-them-home-report-1997">Bringing Them Home report</a> in 1997 examined the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, and the enormous impact this had on these communities. </p>
<p>Similar testimonies of lifelong sorrow emerged from the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/1999-02/child_migrat/report/index">2001 inquiry into child migration</a>, the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/report/index">2004 inquiry into out-of-home care abuse and neglect</a> and the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2010-13/commcontribformerforcedadoption/report/index">2012 inquiry into forced adoptions</a>. </p>
<p>Then, of course, there were the shocking stories of abuse that emerged from the recent <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a>.</p>
<p>All of this was hard for Australians to hear, but as a nation we bore witness. The federal government developed a <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/child_protection_framework.pdf">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020</a> and we enjoyed a moment of optimism and hoped that recognising past injustices might put us on a path to a better future. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/child-protection-report-lacks-crucial-national-detail-on-abuse-in-out-of-home-care-93008">Child protection report lacks crucial national detail on abuse in out-of-home care</a>
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<p>But reality returned. Indigenous children are still <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/child-protection-and-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children">over-represented</a> in the child protection system. Advocacy groups like <a href="https://create.org.au/what-we-do/advocacy/position-papers/">CREATE</a> are still helping young people leaving out-of-home care to overcome stigma and shame, educational disruption and difficulties establishing secure, independent lives. </p>
<p>The South Australian Child Protection Systems Royal Commission <a href="https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2876/f/preface_summary_and_recommendations.pdf">concluded in 2016</a> that the risk of sexual abuse in out-of-home care “has not diminished” and action to address it is “long overdue”. And the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse</a> acknowledged the extent of abuse in out-of-home care nationwide remains unknown. </p>
<h2>A widening gap for foster care kids</h2>
<p>Worryingly, things may actually be getting worse for young people leaving out-of-home care and trying to transition to adulthood. Let’s take three snapshots from the past 150 years: the mid-19th century, the mid-20th century and today.</p>
<p>By the 1860s, most Australian colonies had government-run systems to take guardianship of children through court orders. These systems were less concerned with social justice than they were with preventing children from growing up to become criminals. </p>
<p>This meant preparing children from ages 12 to 15 for work placements. Most girls were sent to work as domestic servants, most boys were placed as general servants or farm labourers. Importantly, welfare departments took responsibility for finding them employment after their training.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-faulty-child-welfare-system-is-the-real-issue-behind-our-youth-justice-crisis-72217">The faulty child welfare system is the real issue behind our youth justice crisis</a>
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<p>Although many children were unhappy with their situations and had little power to change their lives, they were at least entering work around the same age as their working-class peers and had long-term prospects for employment.</p>
<p>By the mid-20th century, the comparison looked different. Children in government systems were typically given the minimum legal education and then funnelled into the same types of jobs they had entered in the 19th century – domestic servants, farm labourers, and other low-skilled work.</p>
<p>However, on leaving their arranged work placements, these young people had to compete for work with their more-qualified peers, who were increasingly staying on longer at school. The long-term stability offered by these fields was no longer guaranteed. </p>
<p>The result was a widening gap between those who had grown up in out-of-home care and those who hadn’t.</p>
<h2>How does this compare to today?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319938998">Our research</a> into the history of foster care has shown that children who grow up in the system continue to suffer educational disadvantages with lifelong consequences. There are, of course, complex reasons for this. </p>
<p>The former foster kids we spoke with in our study said that movement between foster homes caused massive disruption to their educations. There has been more attention in recent years on bringing stability to young people in out-of-home care, including a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Social_Policy_and_Legal_Affairs/Localadoption">reconsideration of adoption</a> as a preferred alternative to foster care. </p>
<p>But our research subjects had mixed feelings about permanent care schemes because they often provide less financial support than foster care and fewer support services. An inquiry into local adoption by <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/SNAICC_Submission-Inquiry_into_Local_Adoption-May_2018.pdf">SNAICC</a> also found that adoption can pose serious issues for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, including loss of culture and family connections.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-failing-to-safeguard-cultural-connections-for-aboriginal-children-in-out-of-home-care-68051">Australia failing to safeguard cultural connections for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care</a>
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<p>Another systemic factor – one we could more easily address – is the problem of “aging out” of the system. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/child_protection_framework.pdf">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children</a> recognised that young people need the state to act as a “good” parent for a few years after they leave care at age 18. After all, young Australians everywhere are continuing to live longer with their families to help ease their transitions to further study or long-term employment.</p>
<p>Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have committed to extending payments to foster and kinship carers <a href="http://thehomestretch.org.au/news/home-stretch-applauds-state-government-commitment-to-extend-foster-care-to-21/">until young people turn 21</a>. The <a href="https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2876/f/preface_summary_and_recommendations.pdf">royal commission in South Australia</a> has also recommended that some aspects of government support should continue to age 25. </p>
<p>But the National Framework made no reference to supporting university attendance for young people leaving care. A few universities – such as <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/cheedr/care-leavers">La Trobe</a> and <a href="https://federation.edu.au/current-students/assistance-support-and-services/student-support-services/care-leaver-support">Federation</a> – provide bursaries, scholarships and dedicated support staff to these young people, but there is no national commitment to extend this support across the country.</p>
<p>This is in stark contrast to the <a href="https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/universities/applying-to-university-as-a-care-leaver/">UK</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-we-can-make-going-to-college-smoother-for-students-whove-been-in-foster-care-88694">US</a>, where efforts to increase the numbers of care leavers at university have been in place for almost two decades.</p>
<p>National apologies for the travesties committed in institutional care are important, but it’s also vital we recognise other severe deficiencies in the system. The gap between what the state delivers to care leavers and what a typical family might provide its own children is wider now than it has been in 150 years. </p>
<p>Extending financial aid and other services into young adulthood, and helping care leavers at university, are two direct ways the government can demonstrate its ongoing commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nell Musgrove received funding from the Australian Research Council (2013-2015) for research into the history of foster care in Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deidre Michell received funding from the Australian Research Council (2013-2015) for research into the history of foster care in Australia. She is a member of the Child Protection Party. </span></em></p>Young people leaving out-of-home care aren’t receiving the support they need to further their educations and transition successfully to adulthood.Nell Musgrove, Senior Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic UniversityDeidre Michell, Senior Lecturer, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1032342018-09-26T05:25:41Z2018-09-26T05:25:41ZShould priests be made to report child abuse revealed in confession?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237677/original/file-20180924-129862-1kqy486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The conflict between the rules of the church on the confidentiality of confessions and mandatory reporting laws is not a new issue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last December, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made public its <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_recommendations.pdf">final report</a>, containing 409 recommendations. The inquiry revealed that there were numerous instances where senior officials in churches failed to report allegations of child sexual abuse while in their care.</p>
<p>Since then, there have been steps forward. For example, on July 1, the <a href="https://www.nationalredress.gov.au/">National Redress Scheme</a> was <a href="https://benchtv.com.au/angela-sdrinis/">established</a> to support people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>What has been particularly controversial is recommendation 7.4, which states:</p>
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<p>Laws concerning mandatory reporting to child protection authorities should not exempt persons in religious ministry from being required to report knowledge or suspicions formed, in whole or in part, on the basis of information disclosed in or in connection with a religious confession.</p>
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<p>The conflict between the rules of the Catholic Church on the confidentiality of confessions and <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect">mandatory reporting laws</a> is not a new issue. These laws require people from selected professions (known as <a href="https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/families/Protecting-kids/mandatory-reporters/about">“mandatory reporters”</a>) to report suspected child abuse to government authorities. However, recommendation 7.4 has recently reignited the debate. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-laws-help-juries-understand-why-victims-of-sexual-violence-struggle-to-recall-their-assaults-103094">New laws help juries understand why victims of sexual violence struggle to recall their assaults</a>
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<p>Australian state and territory governments are responsible for mandatory reporting laws. They <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/church-can-protect-children-confession">have shown an intention</a> to introduce laws that would give effect to the Royal Commission’s recommendation. If introduced, these laws would result in priests facing criminal charges if they fail to report child abuse disclosed in confession. </p>
<p>On 1 October, South Australia will become the first Australian jurisdiction to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/15/south-australia-catholic-church-to-ignore-law-on-reporting-confessions-of-abuse">introduce a law</a> compelling a “minister of religion” to report any confessions of child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/malcolm-turnbull-seeks-more-time-to-decide-new-child-sex-abuse-offences-20180613-p4zl65.html">has argued</a> the “safety of children should always be put first”.</p>
<p>However, Catholic priests <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/church-can-protect-children-confession">argue</a> that such laws would not “make children any safer”. They <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/catholic-church-won-t-break-seal-of-confession-on-abuse">maintain</a> that the proposed laws are “contrary to their faith and would hamper religious liberty”. Some priests are apparently <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/australian-priests-willing-to-go-to-jail-rather-than-break-confessional-seal-95237">“willing to go to jail”</a> rather than break the seal.</p>
<h2>The seal of confession</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.catholicscomehome.org/your-questions/what-is-the-sacrament-of-confession/">seal of confession</a>, also known as the “sacrament of penance” or “sacrament of reconciliation”, is fundamental to the Catholic faith. Sinners can ask for forgiveness for their sins, allowing them to “reconcile with God and the Church”. It is usually done in the confessional box in a church. The seal applies only to communications made during sacramental confession to a priest.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56176">Canon law</a> forbids priests from disclosing a confession. It <a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2014/07/24/unsealing-the-seal-of-confession/">declares</a>: </p>
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<p>The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason. </p>
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<p>A priest who violates the confessional faces <a href="http://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-is-excommunication/">ex-communication</a>, which is the most severe form of punishment in the Catholic faith.</p>
<p>While maintaining the confessional seal is “inviolable” within the Catholic Church, there is no obligation on Australia’s secular society to recognise canon law. </p>
<h2>Religious privilege</h2>
<p>The most recent <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2024.0">census shows</a> that Australia is a secular and multi-faith society. Yet, some laws in Australia continue to provide an exception for religious organisations. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ea199580/s127.html">section 127</a> of the Commonwealth Evidence Act 1995 confers a privilege for religious confessions. It entitles members of the clergy to “refuse to divulge” a religious confession, but only if the confession was not made for a criminal purpose. Evidence laws in most Australian jurisdictions also protect religious confession privilege. </p>
<p>The privilege conferred on religious organisations would be significantly limited if recommendation 7.4 is adopted. </p>
<h2>The religious freedom argument</h2>
<p>Central to the debate has been that protecting the seal of confession is part of <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/600-priests-reject-law-on-seal-of-confession/news-story/84de20ef2e64cdee4aa325a3c936958d">religious freedom</a>. Priests who oppose the proposed law have argued that denying the “confessional privilege would leave them in fear of surveillance and prosecution for their religion”.</p>
<p>Religious freedom is recognised under <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution.aspx">section 116 of the Constitution</a> and by <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2008/130.html?context=1;query=evans%20v%20new%20south%20wales;mask_path=">Australian courts</a>. </p>
<p>Australia is also a party to a several international agreements that protect religious freedom, such as <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights-human-rights-your-fingertips-human-rights-your">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>.</p>
<p>However, rights are not absolute, especially where there are competing rights that seek to protect people from harm. Child sexual abuse is a horrific crime that violates children’s rights. No freedom of religion argument should prevail over the rights of children not to be abused. </p>
<h2>What will ending the secrecy achieve?</h2>
<p>Laws mandating priests to break the confessional seal by reporting child sexual abuse sound good in theory. However, we know what is good in theory does not always work in practice. </p>
<p>The practicality and effectiveness of laws removing the confessional seal are questionable. This is particularly so if religious leaders are refusing to abide such laws. Because the Catholic Church has <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_1_our_inquiry.pdf">accounted for the majority</a> (61.8%) of sexual abuse allegations investigated by the Royal Commission, the proposed legislation seems futile without the support of their clergy.</p>
<p>It would be wishful thinking to believe child molesters would disclose their offending in confession if priests were legally obliged to break confidentiality. </p>
<p>Arguably, maintaining the seal might prevent molesters from committing further acts of sexual abuse. During the confession, a priest can encourage the abuser to seek psychiatric help or come forward to the police. Indeed, <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/why-confessional-seal-should-remain-intact/4317">some priests claim</a> they would deny absolution to those unwilling to seek treatment or counselling for their offending.</p>
<p>Yet, there is a significant risk that abusers will <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ecclesiastical-law-journal/article/confidentiality-of-confessions-in-the-anglican-church-of-australia/135023AB3C3FDA6C77F0110FA419FAFD">continue to offend</a> if they are not reported to authorities. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-17/what-is-confession-and-is-the-change-important/9874752">According to</a> Bishop Greg O’Kelly, child abuse confessions are uncommon. He reported that “no one had ever confessed it to him in his 46 years as a priest”. This is consistent with claims made by clergy to the Royal Commission.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-report-makes-preventing-institutional-sexual-abuse-a-national-responsibility-88564">Royal commission report makes preventing institutional sexual abuse a national responsibility</a>
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<p>However, this conflicts with Dr Marie Keenan’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2050%20-%20Opening%20Address%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Catholic%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Discipline%20Secrecy%20and%20Confession%20-%20Sydney.pdf">small-scale study</a>, which was also referred to during the Royal Commission’s inquiry. </p>
<p>In this study, eight of nine of the priest participants admitted the confession box provided them with a “safe” place to confess sexual abusing children, resolve never to offend again, and seek forgiveness. Keenan observed that the secrecy and safety of the confessional space might have encouraged the abuse to continue.</p>
<h2>We need to think outside the confessional box</h2>
<p>The effectiveness of laws requiring priests to report child abuse in preventing future offending is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. But that is not an excuse for inaction. </p>
<p>We should pause and consider the implications of laws limiting the confessional seal. What would subjecting priests to criminal censure if they fail to report confessions of child abuse to the authorities accomplish? What is the lesser of the two evils: having no confession at all or having a confession with the prospect of priests guiding abusers to seek help? </p>
<p>Most importantly, it must be ensured that whatever is decided the situation is not made worse for victims, survivors and children in the care of institutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Al-Alosi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the most controversial recommendations from the Royal Commission is that child abuse disclosed in confession should be mandatorily reported. But the matter is more complex than it might appear.Dr Al-Alosi, Lecturer, School of Law, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1030942018-09-21T01:30:42Z2018-09-21T01:30:42ZNew laws help juries understand why victims of sexual violence struggle to recall their assaults<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237268/original/file-20180920-129877-gp612k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prosecution rates of sexual assault cases remain low, with fewer than 50% of cases brought to court in NSW resulting in conviction.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June, the New South Wales parliament <a href="https://www.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/media-news/media-releases/2018/historic-new-laws-on-child-sex-abuse.aspx">passed new laws</a> to strengthen protection for children from sexual abuse and enact harsher sentences for their abusers. </p>
<p>The reformed laws were in response to the recommendations of the final report by the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a>, handed down in December 2017. </p>
<p>One of the most significant changes to the NSW laws is in the directions that judges are permitted to give to a jury – one that could impact how victims of sexual assault are viewed by juries.</p>
<p>In a meaningful shift, the <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1986/209/chap6/part5/div1/sec293">amendment</a> allows the trial judge to explain to the jury that it is common for both child and adult victims of sexual assault to forget the details of the trauma they have endured. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-whats-the-difference-93411">Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment: what’s the difference?</a>
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<p>The judge may also tell the jury it is common for there to be differences in the retelling of accounts of sexual assaults. The judge can explain that trauma affects people differently, including their recall of events. And this could result in differences between pre-court statements and what victims say during a trial. </p>
<p>The judge may also point out that both truthful and untruthful accounts of a sexual offence may contain differences. </p>
<p>It is up to jury members, therefore, to decide the relative importance of the differences in a complainant’s accounts when they are assessing his or her truthfulness and reliability.</p>
<p>However, there remains an important caveat to the revised laws: the new directions by the judges are entirely discretionary. This means that individual judges in individual sexual assault trials will decide whether to invoke the new provision.</p>
<h2>The difficulties in prosecuting sexual assault cases</h2>
<p>This provision is largely aimed at victims of childhood sexual abuse, as set out plainly in the act’s <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2018/33/full">title</a> . Royal Commission <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_3_impacts.pdf">research</a> found that victims of child sexual abuse often experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. This might include the inability to recall important aspects of the traumatic event.</p>
<p>These amendments may prove to be beneficial to women who are the victims of sexual offences, as well. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-music-festivals-can-change-the-tune-on-sexual-violence-89758">How music festivals can change the tune on sexual violence</a>
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<p>Of sexual assaults of women reported to the police, prosecution rates remain stubbornly low: <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sexual-assault-on-the-rise-in-sydney-while-conviction-rate-remains-low-20180628-p4zoc6.html">fewer than 50% of cases brought to court in NSW result in conviction</a>. At the same time, reports of sexual assault in the state have increased by 12% in the last year, with women representing 82% of complainants. It is estimated that around <a href="http://www.nswrapecrisis.com.au/Portals/0/PDF/Sexual%20Assault%20The%20Law%20and%20Statistics.pdf">70% of all sexual assaults</a> of women in NSW go unreported to the police. </p>
<p>Nationally, just <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sexual-assault-how-common-is-it-in-australia">15% of alleged sexual assaults</a> are reported to police, while only 11% of those incidents result in conviction.</p>
<p>There are complex reasons for this. Women report feelings of humiliation, denial and self-doubt following a sexual assault. They fear other people will disbelieve, shame and judge them. They also fear violations of their privacy throughout the legal process. Women who have pursued justice in the legal system describe it as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-02/brock-turner-justice-system-sexual-assault-victims/7801784">arduous, combative and exhausting</a>.</p>
<h2>Precedent set in Victoria</h2>
<p>New South Wales is not alone in its attempts to create more equitable trials for sexual abuse victims. In 2017, the Victorian parliament responded to an <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/pacra/royal-commission-institutional-responses-child-sexual-abuse-interim-report">interim report</a> by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This report found that in a sample study of sexual assault trials, defence lawyers raised inconsistencies in the complainant’s evidence in more than 90% of cases.</p>
<p>To address this, parliament <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/jda2015197/s54d.html">amended</a> the laws relating to the directions that judges are permitted to give to juries in sexual assault cases. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hazing-and-sexual-violence-in-australian-universities-we-need-to-address-mens-cultures-92685">Hazing and sexual violence in Australian universities: we need to address men's cultures</a>
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<p>The Victorian law later became the basis for the NSW provision. However, unlike in NSW, the Victorian statute <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/jda2015197/s54d.html">is mandatory</a>: if judges determine there are inconsistencies that would call into question a complainant’s credibility or reliability, they must direct the jury that this can be consistent with trauma.</p>
<p>Though mandatory, the onus is till on the judge to identify when such directions are needed. There appears to be only one <a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2018/220.html?context=1;query=%22jda2015197%20s54d%22;mask_path=">reported case</a> where a judge has done this in Victoria since the law was amended. </p>
<p>These new laws are important steps in the right direction to encourage the reporting of sexual crimes to the police and help juries understand why victims sometimes fail to recall certain aspects of the traumas they’ve endured.</p>
<p>Ensuring a fair trial for all parties to a criminal case is a paramount concern. These new laws go further than previous procedural changes in levelling the field for complainants in sexual assault cases. However, their efficacy will necessarily be limited by giving individual judges the discretion when to act.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The change in law is part of broader reforms that came out of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in both NSW and Victoria.Cindy Grahame, PhD candidate, University of NewcastleJohn Anderson, Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Evidence, University of NewcastleKcasey McLoughlin, Lecturer in Law, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1025642018-09-05T20:06:46Z2018-09-05T20:06:46ZMedia Files: Spotlight’s Walter V. Robinson and the Newcastle Herald’s Chad Watson on covering clergy abuse - and the threats that followed<p>If you’ve seen the movie Spotlight, about the Boston Globe investigative reporters who uncovered the staggering extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US, you’re already familiar with the work of <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/staff/robinson">Walter V. Robinson</a>. He’s the one played by Michael Keaton in the film.</p>
<p>In today’s episode of Media Files - a podcast about the media and how it works - Robinson shares some insights into where the Spotlight investigation began: from scratch.</p>
<p>“I mean, we made our living doing mostly stories about government corruption and malfeasance and we didn’t have a single file anywhere in all of our file cabinets that had the word ‘priest’ or ‘church’,” he says in today’s episode of Media Files. </p>
<p>“I said, look, let’s do this: let’s assemble a list of everybody we can think of who’s ever had anything to do with this sexual abuse of children in Massachusetts and let’s call them all and see what we can find out.”</p>
<p>The initial trickle of leads would soon turn into a flood.</p>
<p>“We had 300 victims just in Boston alone who contacted us in the first two or three weeks after we published,” he said, adding that, for many, “we were the first people they had ever told and they all thought that they were the only ones that this had ever happened to.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for the film Spotlight.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-spotlights-revealing-story-of-child-abuse-in-my-home-town-and-maybe-yours-53955">Review: Spotlight's revealing story of child abuse in my home town – and maybe yours</a>
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<p>As Australia’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> has now made clear, the horrors the Spotlight team uncovered were not a uniquely US problem. </p>
<p>Australian journalist Chad Watson was editing the Newcastle Herald on the day investigative reporter Joanne McCarthy filed a <a href="https://www.theherald.com.au/story/207615/there-will-be-a-royal-commission-because-there-must-be/">column</a> that contained a chillingly prescient line.</p>
<p>“Part of that column was the line, ‘There will be a royal commission into clergy abuse in Australia because there must be’. I remember reading that line before we went to print and I thought, ‘Yep, tomorrow I’ll talk to Joanne about that’,” Watson says on Media Files.</p>
<p>“And at that stage, Joanne had been writing about clergy abuse for 10 years; she had probably written 500 stories about it. And we thought, well, what are we going to do about it?”</p>
<p>McCarthy’s reporting, published while Watson was editor of the Newcastle Herald, lit the fuse that led to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Watson told Media Files there were endless challenges along the way.</p>
<p>“We had legal threats from the Catholic Church. We had priests from the pulpit mentioning the Newcastle Herald. I was actually in mass myself - and now I don’t go to church much anymore - when the priest mentioned that there was a statement at the back of the church to be collected about reports in the Newcastle Herald,” he said. “And I have had friendships fracture.”</p>
<p>In today’s episode of Media Files, we talk about the challenges in covering clergy abuse, how media outlets handle accusations against people who have since died and how journalists work with vulnerable survivors of abuse. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-investigative-journalists-are-using-social-media-to-uncover-the-truth-66393">How investigative journalists are using social media to uncover the truth</a>
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</p>
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<p>Media Files is produced by a team of journalists and academics who have spent decades working in and reporting on the media industry. They’re passionate about sharing their understanding of the media landscape, especially how journalists operate, how media policy is changing, and how commercial manoeuvres and digital disruption are affecting the kinds of media and journalism we consume.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/podcasts/mediafiles">Media Files</a> will be out every month, with occasional off-schedule episodes released when we’ve got fresh analysis we can’t wait to share with you. To make sure you don’t miss an episode, find us and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/media-files/id1434250621">subscribe on Apple Podcasts</a>, in <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you find your podcasts. And while you’re there, please rate and review us - it really helps others to find us.</p>
<p>You can find more podcast episodes from The Conversation <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/podcast-3738">here</a>.</p>
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<ul>
<li>Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467</li>
<li>Lifeline 24-hour counselling: 13 11 14</li>
<li>Mental Health Crisis Helpline in each state and territory.</li>
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<p><em>Recorded at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. Producer: Andy Hazel and Gavin Nebauer.</em></p>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Theme music by Susie Wilkins.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this episode, we hear from Walter V. Robinson on how the Boston Globe Spotlight investigation into clergy abuse began, and from the Newcastle Herald's Chad Watson on how his paper covered abuse.Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986392018-06-20T08:37:51Z2018-06-20T08:37:51ZPolitics Podcast: Attorney-General Christian Porter on a crowded agenda<p>Attorney-General Christian Porter says the response to the <a href="https://www.nationalapologyconsultation.gov.au/">consultations for the national apology</a> to victims of child sexual abuse has been very strong with a total of 167 attendees at consultation sessions so far. “There are further consultations coming up in Ballarat, Melbourne, Bendigo, Newcastle and Sydney … it is a very important process and is going very well,” he said.</p>
<p>Porter also says there’s “some level of common sense” to suggestions that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who set up the royal commission, should have a role in the apology. “I do think those things are best dealt with by exchange of letter or meetings directly between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister.”</p>
<p>In this interview Porter also speaks about foreign interference laws, elder abuse, the amalgamation of the Family and Federal Circuit courts, and why he rejects calls for change to section 44 of the constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christian Porter says the response to the consultations for a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse has been very strong with a total of 167 attendees at consultation sessions so far.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983842018-06-15T03:04:54Z2018-06-15T03:04:54ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the child abuse royal commission response and One Nation’s blow-up<figure>
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<p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis Mark Evans about the week in politics. They discuss the government’s response and apology to victims of child sexual abuse, Pauline Hanson losing yet another One Nation senator, and the problems in passing the personal income tax cut bill.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Mark Evans about the week in politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/969032018-05-22T23:41:09Z2018-05-22T23:41:09ZIn landmark ruling, Archbishop Philip Wilson found guilty of covering up child sex abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219894/original/file-20180522-51115-1gcp446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Archbishop Philip Wilson leaves Newcastle Local Court after being found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Peter Lorimer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-22/adelaide-archbishop-found-guilty-of-concealing-child-abuse/9783612">has been found guilty</a> in the Newcastle Local Court on charges of failing to report his knowledge about a Catholic priest who had sexually abused a boy in the Hunter Valley in the 1970s. A sentencing hearing will be held on June 19.</p>
<p>Wilson is among a handful of Catholic clerics in the world to be charged with this specific crime, including <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/philippe-barbarin-child-sex-abuse-not-report-trial-court-france-cardinal-catholic-church-a7955521.html">French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin</a>.
The findings in the Wilson case come at an important time, with Cardinal George Pell to stand trial on <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/cardinal-george-pell-to-stand-trial-on-historical-sex-assault-charges-20180501-p4zckv.html">multiple historic sexual assault charges</a> later this year. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse also recently <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/factsheet_-_criminal_justice_report_-_failure_to_report_offence.pdf">recommended </a> that failure to report child sexual abuse become law in all Australian states. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-sweeping-reforms-for-catholic-church-to-end-child-abuse-89141">Royal commission recommends sweeping reforms for Catholic Church to end child abuse</a>
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<p>There have been three attempts to prosecute officials of the Catholic Church for concealing the sexual assault of children in the Hunter Valley region – including the case against Wilson. </p>
<p>The first trial was <a href="https://www.theherald.com.au/story/280480/exclusive-police-charge-hunter-priest-with-sex-crime-cover-up/">abandoned when the accused died</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.theherald.com.au/story/2167455/priest-lew-fenton-walks-from-charges/">the second</a>, the magistrate found the boy in question had been sexually abused, but evidence relating to the priest’s alleged knowledge of the abuse was inconsistent.</p>
<p>Wilson’s prosecution followed the 2010 airing of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-06-18/bishop-urges-clarity-on-paedophile-priest/872850">allegations on ABC Lateline</a> by survivor Peter Gogarty, who accused Wilson of having knowledge of historic child sex abuse. This led to three people making complaints to Lake Macquarie police, the establishment of Police Strike Force Lantle, and the NSW <a href="http://www.specialcommissions.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/sisa/default.aspx">Special Commission of Inquiry</a> into sex abuse allegations related to the Maitland/Newcastle diocese of the Catholic Church.</p>
<p>This ultimately led to Wilson <a href="https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5082196/trial-starts-on-the-charge-heard-around-the-world/">being charged</a> in March 2015. The charge stated that between April 2004 and January 2006, Wilson held the belief that local priest James Patrick Fletcher had committed an indecent assault on a boy. As the case progressed through the courts, the archbishop lodged four appeals to have it thrown out – two in Newcastle Local Court, one in the NSW Supreme Court and one in the Court of Appeal. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-09/catholic-archbishop-philip-wilson-wants-case-thrown-out-again/9632804">Each was dismissed</a>. </p>
<p>The implications arising from Wilson’s conviction are wide-reaching and significant, both for the Catholic Church and for other institutions.</p>
<p>First, a successful prosecution means that pending matters arising from the work of the Royal Commission might now have more success before the courts in NSW and Victoria. The reason for this is that both states include laws that criminalise the concealment of a serious indictable offence.</p>
<p><a href="http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s316.html">Section 316 of the NSW Crimes Act (1900)</a>requires that for a successful prosecution, the following elements all be met: a serious indictable offence has been committed (one punishable by imprisonment for five years or more); another person knows or believes the offence has been committed; that person knows the information may be of material interest to the police; and they fail to pass on such knowledge without reasonable excuse.</p>
<p>In today’s judgment, Magistrate Robert Stone <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-22/adelaide-archbishop-philip-wilson-guilty-concealing-child-abuse/9783612">made it clear</a> Wilson had the requisite knowledge of the offences and the main witness, Peter Creigh, was reliable and truthful in his evidence.</p>
<p>Second, while the Catholic Church has focused on the moral obligations to respond to victims, and relied on Canon law for legal guidance, it will now be forced to recognise its <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/royal-commission-child-sex-abuse-catholic-church-accountability/8256126">accountability</a> in failing to protect children from sexual abuse by reporting criminal activity to police.</p>
<p>This will have a worldwide impact on the already weakened legitimacy of the church’s moral authority. We could expect increased focus on the activity of high-ranking clerics in failing to report what they knew to civil authorities.</p>
<p>Third, the decision today may have the flow-on effect of influencing other jurisdictions throughout the world to re-evaluate criminal law provisions as they relate to the concealment of childhood sexual abuse.</p>
<p>In Australia, only NSW and <a href="http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/home/safer+communities/protecting+children+and+families/failure+to+disclose+offence">Victoria</a> have laws dealing with failing to report criminal activity.</p>
<p>If other state governments respond to the recommendation by the Royal Commission that failing to report and protect children constitutes a crime, we could <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-releases/report-criminal-justice-released">expect further prosecutions</a> if there were future cases.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-report-makes-preventing-institutional-sexual-abuse-a-national-responsibility-88564">Royal commission report makes preventing institutional sexual abuse a national responsibility</a>
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<p>Inquiries into childhood sexual assault within religious and other institutions have invariably shown the life-long scarring that child sex abuse has caused. This was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/royal-commission-child-sex-abuse-case-studies/9250972">clearly demonstrated</a> in the evidence collected by the Royal Commission.</p>
<p>Despite the scandalous revelations of numerous inquiries in Ireland, Canada, England, the United States and Australia, Pope Francis <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/kieran-tapsell-a-different-scorecard-on-pope-francis/">continues to oppose</a> the need for mandatory reporting of knowledge of child abuse by clerics.</p>
<p>Yesterday’s verdict will ensure that Catholic clerics who knew child sexual abuse was occurring but did nothing to report it are no longer beyond the reach of the criminal justice system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The finding in the Newcastle Local Court will have huge implications for the Catholic church and other institutions worldwide.Kathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/930082018-03-08T19:26:17Z2018-03-08T19:26:17ZChild protection report lacks crucial national detail on abuse in out-of-home care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209284/original/file-20180307-146675-1i05l9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Around 40% of children in out-of-home care have been there for five years or more.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/">Australian Institute of Health and Welfare</a> has released a <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics">new report</a> showing that one in 32 Australian children received child protection services in 2016-17, with 74% being repeat clients.</p>
<p>The report also noted that the number of children receiving child protection services rose by about 25% over five years, which may “relate to changes in the underlying rate of child abuse and neglect, increases in notifications, and access to services, or a combination of these factors.”</p>
<p>It follows the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">final report</a>, which included 409 recommendations to make institutions safer places for children.</p>
<p>One of the Commission’s most striking findings was that Australia’s alternate care systems cannot protect children from abuse. </p>
<p>Today’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, titled <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics">Child Protection 2016-2017</a>, reinforces that some fundamental changes are needed to redress this situation. </p>
<h2>What’s in today’s report - and what’s not?</h2>
<p>The report notes that in 2016–17, the national recurrent expenditure on child protection and out-of-home care services was $4.3 billion, up 8% from 2015–16.</p>
<p>A significant proportion of this money went to provide alternate care to the 47,915 children (as of June 2017) who were in out-of-home care. These are children who cannot live with their families because of abuse or neglect, parental incapacitation or illness.</p>
<p>These children are mostly young and highly vulnerable. The AIHW report noted that across Australia in 2016–17, infants were most likely to have received child protection services, while those aged 15–17 were least likely. The median age of children receiving services was eight.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209282/original/file-20180307-146694-5ee6i1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics">AIHW</a></span>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209277/original/file-20180307-146675-13y7yiw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nationally, 47,915 children were in out-of-home care at 30 June 2017—a rate of 8.7 per.
1,000 children</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics">AIHW</a></span>
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<p>The rates are higher for Indigenous children, who are in out-of-home care at a rate of 13.6 per 1,000. In 2016-17, Indigenous children were also 10 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to enter out-of-home care. </p>
<p>Many children have already spent considerable periods living away from their families: for example, 41% of children in out-of-home care have been there for five years or more.</p>
<p>For the first time, AIHW presented data on disability status. While national figures aren’t available and definitions aren’t consistent, the report said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2016–17, data on the disability status of children in out-of-home care were available for six jurisdictions, representing 71% of children in out-of-home care at 30 June 2017. Overall, 15% of children in out-of-home care at 30 June 2017 were reported as having a disability.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a lot of data to get your head around. Yet amidst all the statistics, tables and figures, one crucial measure for benchmarking, identifying and acting on child abuse is missing. </p>
<p>There is no reliable national data in this report on the number of notifications, investigations and substantiations of abuse that takes place <em>when a child is in out-of-home care</em>. </p>
<p>The report says that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some jurisdictions include cases of alleged abuse in out-of-home care in the data provided for this report on the number of notifications, investigations and substantiations… but these cases cannot be separately identified in the
national data.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Without this basic information on the national rate, government assurances that children are safe in out-of-home care ring hollow.</p>
<h2>Abuse of children in out-of-home care</h2>
<p>The Royal Commission noted that a range of factors allow perpetrators to exploit opportunities to abuse vulnerable children in care. These include separation from family, unstable placements, isolation and a lack of relationships with reliable, safe adults.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_recommendations.pdf">made over 30 recommendations</a> aimed at improving Australia’s out-of-home care system so that children are less likely to be sexually abused while they are under the state’s protection. </p>
<p>Significantly, it recommended that federal and state governments collect information about children who were found to have been sexually abused while in out-of-home care, as well as information about their characteristics and the alleged abuse.</p>
<p>It also recommended the establishment of a nationally consistent approach to service delivery, recording, reporting, and information sharing for child sexual abuse in out-of-home care. </p>
<p>Today’s AIHW report cautions that national child protection data are likely to understate the true prevalence of child abuse and neglect across the country. </p>
<p>Its own figures, which only include notifications made to organisations like the police and non-government welfare agencies if the notifications were also referred to child protection department, support this assertion. </p>
<p>However, the lack of data in the AIHW report relating to abuse in out-of-home care also reveals a more troubling aspect of our national child protection systems.</p>
<p>The Royal Commission is the latest body to have found that children in out-of-home care have experienced abuse at the hands of people meant to protect them. <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/report/index">Numerous inquiries</a> have made similar findings. In 2009, the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/apology-to-the-forgotten-australians-and-former-child-migrants">prime minister apologised</a> to people abused as children in out-of-home care.</p>
<p>It’s not just historical abuse, as a <a href="https://www.childprotection.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net691/f/cisc-complete.pdf">series of inquiries</a> instigated since the National Apology <a href="https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/projects-and-consultations/projects-archive/child-protection-systems-royal-commission">have made clear</a>. </p>
<p>Children living in <a href="https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/assets/Publications-inquiries/as-a-good-parent-would.pdf">group home settings</a> (also known as residential care) appear to be the most vulnerable. </p>
<p>The failure of government departments and welfare agencies to report data on the abuse of children in care allows those bodies to escape scrutiny. </p>
<p>National data collection and public reporting by state and territories of their performance may seem a minor issue. But as the Royal Commission has made clear, it is only through having this information that we will be able to learn the lessons of the past, and ensure that we have measures to keep safe the children we have placed under government care and protection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine McFarlane has received funding from Criminology Research Council to examine the criminalisation of children in out-of-home care.
She is a former Chief of Staff to the NSW Minister for Families and Community Services (2015).</span></em></p>A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reveals grim detail on the breadth of child abuse in Australia. But crucial national data on abuse in out-of-home care remains elusive.Katherine McFarlane, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Law & Justice, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908212018-02-15T17:56:27Z2018-02-15T17:56:27ZAbuse in care versus not in care: we need to tackle potential bias in a national redress scheme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205864/original/file-20180211-51706-hvu2kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No other government redress scheme has included children who were abused both in care and not in care.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6006">proposed Commonwealth redress scheme</a> for victims of child sexual abuse is a first step toward creating a national redress scheme. Should a national scheme result, it will be unlike any other in the world.</p>
<p>There are (or have been) 36 major government schemes for institutional abuse of children in 13 countries (and one independent polity). But the proposed national scheme in Australia is more complex, bigger, and includes more sites of abuse than any other.</p>
<p>For complexity, it has different claimant groups, diverse offending organisations, federal-state governance, shared costs of government and non-government organisations, and will need to account for previous payments survivors received for abuse.</p>
<p>For size, the expected number of eligible claimants – validated and awarded a monetary payment – is larger than any other scheme using an individualised assessment of abuse and impact. The estimated number is 60,000; the two other largest schemes have involved 31,500 (<a href="http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100015576/1100100015577">Canada</a>) and 15,570 (<a href="http://www.rirb.ie/">Ireland</a>) claimants.</p>
<p>For scope, the royal commission estimates the number of individual Australian institutions where sexual abuse of children occurred is 4,000. The numbers for the Canada and Ireland pale in significance, at about 140 residential schools and 144 industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages, special schools, and hospitals, respectively.</p>
<p>But the elephant in the room – a profound problem few have recognised – is that Australia’s proposed scheme has two different claimant groups: those who were abused in care, and those who were abused in non-care settings.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-abuse-survivors-and-advocates-to-clear-the-way-to-a-national-redress-scheme-90925">Listen to abuse survivors and advocates to clear the way to a national redress scheme</a>
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<h2>Care versus not in care</h2>
<p>No other government scheme has included children who were abused both in care and not in care.</p>
<p>Virtually all government schemes have focused only on children who were placed in institutional or out-of-home care, including foster care. They lived in “closed” settings – such as residential facilities, homes, training schools, or detention centres – on a long-term basis, without a parent to care for them. This group is called “care-leavers”.</p>
<p>A second group – “non-care-leavers” – were abused in “open” settings such as schools, church parishes, clubs, and sports associations, often by clergy and members of religious orders, or lay staff in religious organisations.</p>
<p>Compared to care-leavers, non-care-leavers had one or more parents caring for them. Fewer schemes globally include non-care-leavers; almost all that do are faith-based.</p>
<p>Adjusting for multiple contexts of victimisation, those abused in out-of-home care or detention <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">made up 44%</a> of the 6,875 survivors who attended the royal commission’s private sessions to May 2017.</p>
<p>Australia’s proposed redress scheme is also unusual in focusing on sexual abuse alone: just 18% of government schemes for care-leavers do. </p>
<p>Care-leaver advocacy groups <a href="https://www2.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/223329/2018-Inequalities-of-redress-14-Feb.pdf">have long criticised</a> the sole focus on sexual abuse. They argue children:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… were violated in every sense in an institution and being sexually used was just one of those violations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What’s remembered is living in “constant fear of sexual abuse, [suffering] deprivation of food and schooling, forced labour, and medical neglect”, in addition to physical and sexual abuse. </p>
<p>Australian care-leavers are seeking redress for the state’s failure to carry out its duty of care, as survivors have done in other government redress schemes. But redress for institutional abuse is restricted in the Australian scheme. This was set in motion by the federal government’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/terms-reference">terms of reference</a> for the royal commission to focus on sexual abuse. </p>
<p>There is little doubt that what motivated Julia Gillard to establish the commission was clergy sexual abuse of children and cover-ups by the police and church authorities. Media attention then and now is fixed on this phenomenon, and often overlooks other victims and contexts of institutional child abuse.</p>
<p>Calling attention to group differences between care leavers and non-care-leavers does not suggest one group suffered more than the other. That is, and would be, wrong. </p>
<p>Rather, we should pay attention to group differences that matter for justice, with reference to the monetary payment. These are experiences of abuse and the social status of child victims.</p>
<p>Care-leavers lived in settings in which sexual abuse was both public and private, both direct and more diffuse in a sexualised and violent environment – one in which sexual abuse occurred in all spheres of living, working and sleeping. As children, care-leavers were considered and treated as low-status, as morally and socially inferior to other children.</p>
<p>Unless corrective action is taken, these differences may disadvantage care-leavers in assessing the monetary payment compared to non-care-leavers.</p>
<h2>How will the monetary payment be decided?</h2>
<p>The royal commission’s proposed matrix for deciding monetary payments recognises group differences (in the experiences of abuse, but not social status of child victims) by including a 20% factor for “additional elements” if a child was in care or a closed institution. </p>
<p>However, it can go further by giving explicit recognition to group differences in the context-dependent nature of sexual abuse, and in children’s social status. Otherwise, care-leavers will appear not to “measure up” to the presumed standard of non care leavers. This will occur in two ways. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, the framing of sexual abuse will draw on personal injuries law, which considers the types and frequencies of specific acts of abuse, for which claimants are able to recall names of perpetrators and a timeframe or dates. This legal framing is not well suited for care-leavers, for whom sexual abuse was more often diffuse and interwoven in daily life.</p></li>
<li><p>Second, care-leavers’ lower social status as children is likely to affect decision-makers’ assessments of the perceived severity and impact of abuse. Specifically, it may devalue care-leavers’ experiences compared to those of non-care-leavers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>This second claim is contentious. However, it comes from research on the impact of a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=yL4EiAKsdg4C&printsec=frontcover">“hierarchy of victimisation”</a>, in which those of higher social status are treated as more deserving and credible victims.</p>
<p>Evidence also comes from <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/national_redress_scheme_participant_and_cost_estimates_report.pdf">a report</a> prepared for the royal commission in which average payments in the Catholic Church’s <a href="https://www.catholic.org.au/professional-standards/towards-healing">Towards Healing</a> protocol for sexual and physical abuse were compared. They were A$30,000 for abuse in residential care, but $50,000 to $55,000 for abuse in education and religious settings.</p>
<p>These averages, the report says, were “inconsistent with private session information”, which suggested “a higher severity of abuse in residential settings” compared to others.</p>
<h2>What, then, is the way forward?</h2>
<p>Those in charge of the redress scheme’s implementation must consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>whether the assessment matrix takes into account group similarities and differences in the experiences of abuse</p></li>
<li><p>if “sexual abuse” is inclusive of the experiences of children in care and in closed settings</p></li>
<li><p>how the social status of child victims is affecting decisions</p></li>
<li><p>in what ways a care-leaver case seems not to measure up to a non-care-leaver case.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There must be continual review and reflection on the influences and biases that a child victim’s social status has in determining abuse severity and impact.</p>
<p>Unless this occurs, the bodies and lives of higher-status children will matter more to redress scheme decision-makers. Their abuse will be seen as more serious, and the impact of abuse will be seen as more dramatic. </p>
<p>This will not result from intentional bias, but will take a more subtle – perhaps subconscious – form. It stems from two disparate survivor groups seeking justice in one redress scheme.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Daly receives an Australian Research Council grant on redress for institutional abuse of children (2017-2020), and has received a previous ARC grant (2013-15) in support of this area of research. She is a member of the Commonwealth Independent Advisory Council on Redress (2017-present).</span></em></p>Australia’s proposed redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse is more complex, bigger, and includes more sites than any other.Kathleen Daly, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909252018-02-07T19:09:27Z2018-02-07T19:09:27ZListen to abuse survivors and advocates to clear the way to a national redress scheme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203939/original/file-20180130-170426-b6auje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Practices for a redress scheme should follow what the royal commission did when working with survivors.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Jeremy Piper</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently completed <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> is recognised as a world exemplar in its mode and scope.</p>
<p>However, there are considerable political and policy hurdles facing the federal government if it is to lead the states and territories and move Australia toward a national redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, as recommended by the royal commission.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-royal-commissions-final-report-has-landed-now-to-make-sure-there-is-an-adequate-redress-scheme-89158">The royal commission's final report has landed – now to make sure there is an adequate redress scheme</a>
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<h2>Current hurdles</h2>
<p>Establishing a national scheme is difficult because the Commonwealth alone cannot legislate it. Rather, states must refer powers to the Commonwealth, which then permits their non-government institutions (like churches, charities and secular organisations) to opt in. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6006">A bill</a> currently before parliament is a first step. Passage will affect Commonwealth survivors and permit the territories and associated non-government institutions to opt in. The Commonwealth has 1,000 of a national total of 60,000 eligible survivors.</p>
<p>Despite many meetings over the past two years, the federal government has not been able to persuade the states to refer powers and opt in. This significant hurdle can be traced to who will pay and how much, scheme details, and state-federal politics.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/%7E/media/Committees/Senate/committee/scrutiny/scrutiny_digest/PDF/d13.pdf?la=en">major concern</a> with the current bill is that core elements of the redress scheme – among them who will be eligible and how the monetary payment will be determined – are not in the legislation. Rather, they are in delegated legislation (the rules, not regulations), which gives the scheme operator (the social service minister) considerable discretion in implementing the legislation.</p>
<p>The effect of using the rules is to bypass detailed parliamentary debate on the bill’s provisions. The then social services minister, Christian Porter, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/%7E/media/Committees/Senate/committee/scrutiny/scrutiny_digest/PDF/min_responses%2015.pdf?la=en">explained that</a> using rules rather than regulations or legislation provides “flexibility” in implementing the scheme, “prompt responses … to unforeseen issues”, and an ability to adapt and modify the scheme in a timely manner.</p>
<p>This position is understandable in light of many questions that will arise during the scheme’s implementation. But a balance will need to be struck between parliamentary oversight and operator flexibility.</p>
<p>The minister has broad powers in the rules to decide who is eligible. Porter <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-26/sex-offenders-to-be-excluded-from-child-abuse-redress-scheme/9087256">has said</a> those convicted of a sexual offence or sentenced to imprisonment for five years or more would be ineligible. The reason given was to ensure integrity and public confidence in the scheme. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-redress-for-child-sexual-abuse-all-victims-should-be-equal-86456">When it comes to redress for child sexual abuse, all victims should be equal</a>
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<p>Another area of contention, and in the rules, is the minister’s power to “declare a method” for deciding the monetary payment, known as the assessment matrix. </p>
<p>Porter’s rationale for not having the matrix in legislation is “to prevent fraudulent claims”, which might result if the method or guidelines were published. However, what’s in the rules will be publicly accessible.</p>
<p>Sufficiently robust information, but of a general nature, on what is to be assessed and how it will be assessed must be publicly available so that claimants, legal advisors and support staff, and members of the public are informed. More precise guidance and detail for decision-makers to calculate a monetary payment can be in administrative guidelines.</p>
<h2>What do survivors and advocates want?</h2>
<p>I carried out 16 interviews with well-known public survivors and advocates to get their views on a national redress scheme. Most were interviewed in the months before the bill was tabled. Several major themes emerged.</p>
<p>First, there is strong endorsement for a national redress scheme, with all government and non-government institutions “coming to the table”. It should be “embraced by states and territories, supported by the institutions” to provide “uniformity and equity”. It “shouldn’t be a question of where you live”.</p>
<p>Despite this, concern was expressed that it may not be national. One interviewee said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the current political climate, there’s absolutely no way the Labor states are going to refer powers. [They] can now sniff the breeze and realise that nationally [the Coalition] is in trouble … The state premiers are coming up for re-election. There’s no way they’re going to surrender powers. They’re going to sit this out.</p>
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<p>Another said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most we can hope for is some sort of flawed partial national scheme.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The political questions are: who is going to pay, is there support, and where is the momentum and media attention? Two interviewees said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s coming down to the money and who will budge first: how much money the federal government needs to put in and how much the state governments need to put in.</p>
<p>There are no votes in this scheme. There are just no votes … There are no champions beyond those intimately involved. It’s been very difficult for these past five years to keep momentum.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some states may opt-in to the Commonwealth scheme, but others may decide to legislate their own. Other states may not opt-in or delay a decision. Some non-government organisations may continue to run their own schemes. This fragmentation will create further uncertainty – and one result is increasing civil litigation.</p>
<p>All care-leavers and their advocates underscored their concern with the scheme’s sole focus on sexual abuse, but so too did several advocating for clergy abuse survivors or service groups with a mixed clientele. There is more general interest, then, to include physical and emotional abuse in the redress scheme.</p>
<p>Those interviewed after the minister’s announcement of exclusions based on survivors’ criminal history were against the idea.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/report-makes-the-case-for-a-national-redress-scheme-for-sex-abuse-survivors-47625">Report makes the case for a national redress scheme for sex abuse survivors</a>
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<p>Another theme to emerge was the human costs of not meeting or poorly managing survivors’ expectations. For example: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Divisions have emerged of “in” and “out” groups of care leavers with the focus on sexual abuse.</p></li>
<li><p>Survivors have unrealistic expectations they will receive the maximum payment of A$150,000. This must be managed carefully.</p></li>
<li><p>The scheme is taking too long to establish, and survivors are dying.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Many said redress is more than a monetary payment: a payment can “help people get back on their feet”, but it also means acknowledgement, recognition and validation of survivors. </p>
<p>Redress requires attention to how a scheme is implemented. Practices should follow what the commission did when working with survivors, which means sufficient funding for legal and support services. Financial advice, if it is sought by survivors, can ensure that payments are used wisely. </p>
<p>Other redress elements should be considered, such as educational scholarships, access to medical and dental benefits, housing in lieu of a monetary payment, and collective modes of redress like a national memorial and a permanent museum collection on orphanages.</p>
<p>Interviewees argued that government and non-government institutions must be held accountable. They spoke about accountability in two ways:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>For past abuse, institutions must “pull their weight”, and must not “minimise what happened to us” nor engage in “legal tricks, manoeuvres, and various games” to avoid responsibility. There must be a “general humbling of their position to accept that they were wrong”.</p></li>
<li><p>For future change, institutions must “make requisite changes” and commit strongly to ensuring “it doesn’t happen again”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Interviewees also wanted to know more about scheme elements and stressed the need for a public education campaign. One said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any scheme has got to be sold not only to survivors, but also the Australian public. Public support is very important … I would like to see a lot more public awareness … The taxpayer will be contributing, and if you [want] them supporting it and behind it, they’ve got to understand how it’s operating and be on board.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another believed there should:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… have been some public process of informing people about the principles. But [there’s been] nothing, just nothing for the public.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Participants raised many questions about the redress scheme’s elements, how it would operate, and its relationship to civil litigation. An identified problem is that too little detail about the scheme and its principles has been readily available to survivors, advocacy groups, and the public. The federal government needs to be more proactive in this respect.</p>
<p>Many were optimistic when the royal commission released the proposed redress scheme in September 2015. The mood today is more one of pessimism and uncertainty because it has taken a long time to see progress.</p>
<p>Despite this, the message that survivors and advocates want to send to parliament, the minister, all the states and territories and non-government institutions is to establish a truly national scheme:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… as soon as possible … there are plenty of people who are suffering, and the longer we wait, the less support there will be. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The nation has been patient. It’s time to end the political games and fulfil the mandate of the royal commission.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>My thanks and appreciation to these people for their time and thoughts in the interviews: Wayne Chamley, John Dommett, Nicola and John Ellis, Chrissie Foster, Peter Fox, Frank Golding, Craig Hughes-Cashmore, Mervyn Humphreys, Rob Llewellyn-Jones, Dee Michell, Joanna Penglase, Francis Sullivan, Leonie Sheedy, Manny Waks, Karyn Walsh and Jacqueline Wilson.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Daly receives an Australian Research Council grant on redress for institutional abuse of children (2017-2020), and has received a previous ARC grant (2013-15) in support of this area of research. She is a member of the Commonwealth Independent Advisory Council on Redress (2017-present).</span></em></p>There are considerable political and policy hurdles ahead if Australia is to move toward a national redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse.Kathleen Daly, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/888752018-01-04T20:32:04Z2018-01-04T20:32:04ZTransforming the Parramatta Female Factory institutional precinct into a site of conscience<p>With the inclusion of the <a href="http://www.parragirls.org.au">Parramatta Female Factory</a> institutional precinct on the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/parramatta-female-factory-and-institutions-precinct">national heritage list</a>, the federal government has recognised for the first time that institutionalisation is and has been a central part of Australia’s welfare system over two centuries.</p>
<p>The listing is testament to this precinct’s unique capacity to tell the stories of institutionalised women and generations of Australians who experienced out-of-home care, known as forgotten Australians, child migrants and Stolen Generations. It is now up to national, state and local interests to embrace this change.</p>
<p>The Parramatta Female Factory was identified as a site of abuse by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has now made its final recommendations.</p>
<p>It is timely to ask how past sites of institutional abuse can be transformed from places of incomprehensible violence and suffering into places that can be harnessed to achieve the commission’s goals of redress, justice and the prevention of future institutional abuse.</p>
<h2>The long wait for justice</h2>
<p>The Parramatta Female Factory institutional precinct has been in continuous use since an assignment depot for female convicts was established there in 1821. In 1847, the original site was repurposed as Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, and again, in 1983, as the present-day Cumberland Hospital. </p>
<p>The adjacent Roman Catholic orphanage site, founded in 1844, became Parramatta Girls Industrial School in 1887, and operated as Norma Parker Women’s Detention Centre until 2010. An <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/uts-shopfront-community-program/news-and-events/news/parramatta">estimated</a> 30,000 women and children passed through the portals of the child welfare and Female Factory institutional complex alone.</p>
<p>This is Australia’s longest-operating site of institutional incarceration and violence against females. It is also a place of punitive incarceration of children, women and Indigenous Australians and those labelled as mentally ill. Why did it take so long for this site to be added to the national heritage register? </p>
<p>If not for former residents of Parramatta Girls Home this listing would have never happened. <a href="http://www.parragirls.org.au/parragirls.php">Parragirls</a> founder Bonney Djuric lodged the original national heritage application in 2011, which was the basis for its final listing in 2017.</p>
<p>Parragirls have continuously fought, for more than a decade, to preserve this place so that the injustices they suffered will never be repeated again. </p>
<p>But, until today, the neglect of the girls’ home and the entire precinct has replicated the abandonment the women have experienced in seeking justice for themselves and the thousands who passed before them.</p>
<p>Girls interned at Parramatta Girls Home experienced systematic and endemic levels of violence and neglect – the effects of which are endured by survivors to this day. These violations have been recorded by the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-07-parramatta-training-school-girls">royal commission</a>.</p>
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<p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse-11561">Explainer: royal commission into child sex abuse</a></em></strong> </p>
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<p>Findings from the commission’s investigation into the girls’ home catalogue a regime of discipline and punishment and emotional trauma, including physical and medical control, and physical and sexual abuse. Compensation and civil claim processes related to the home also came in for criticism in <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">its report</a>. </p>
<p>The problem confronting both the commission and Australians more generally is how to contend with personal and collective trauma on this scale. With the site now earmarked for redevelopment under the Parramatta North urban transformation plan, the New South Wales government faces this same challenge.</p>
<h2>Creating a site of conscience</h2>
<p>Apologies, stone memorials and trauma tourism no longer suffice for those living with the consequences of serious abuse. We urgently need a new imaginary for our past, where we make use of Australian heritage to do justice. </p>
<p>Former residents of Parramatta Girls Home have shown us how this is done by implementing a singular vision to transform this forgotten place. It’s called a site of conscience. </p>
<p>In principle, the <a href="https://www.sitesofconscience.org/en/home/">site of conscience</a> global movement proposes the reclamation of places of human suffering to make common ground for dignity, respect and civil participation, instead of abuse and neglect. </p>
<p>Engaging with a site’s history in this way, government, civil society and the public can better understand contemporary social justice issues and build a future society that does not repeat the wrongs of the past. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-redress-for-child-sexual-abuse-all-victims-should-be-equal-86456">When it comes to redress for child sexual abuse, all victims should be equal</a></em></strong> </p>
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<p>In practice, on the grounds of Parramatta Girls Home, a site of conscience has been brought into being through the community activities of <a href="http://www.parragirls.org.au/parragirls.php">Parragirls</a> and <a href="https://www.pffpmemory.org.au">PFFP memory project</a>. Launched in 2012, the memory project has enabled Parragirls to supplant isolation, shame and silence with shared memory, creativity and social gathering. </p>
<p>Activities include inaugurating an annual children’s day and memory garden, collaborative exhibitions and performances, and Stolen Generations’ songwriting and live music events. The memory project has also enabled Parragirls to contribute to the design of the Parramatta Girls Home memorial and to impact academic research on ethics and policy on child welfare records.</p>
<p>Agency is crucial to the activation of this institutional precinct as a site of conscience. This means, first and foremost, those who experienced injustice – its former occupants – are empowered to determine how we remember the past and how to use it build a better present and future. </p>
<h2>Transformative justice</h2>
<p>Imagine a living public memorial that includes all Australians in the commitment to ensure our children are protected both now and in the future. </p>
<p>From this precinct, we can learn how past legacies and social issues impact contemporary practices of institutionalisation and systemic violence against women and children. </p>
<p>It is here, in this very place of inordinate pain and loss, that we can best put justice to work and make use of past wrongs for future good. And this enables us, as a nation, to put into action the royal commission’s goals of redress, justice and the prevention of future institutional abuse.</p>
<p>This vision calls for our collective embrace of transformative justice. It also demands our civic engagement to hold the government to account in the development and future use of Australia’s principal site of institutional welfare heritage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bonney Djuric is Director of the not-for-profit organisation PFFP Memory Project. PFFP Memory Project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lily Hibberd is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project number DE160100142). She is also Creative Director of PFFP Memory Project, a not-for-profit organisation, which is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Steele is affiliated with the Women's Justice Network.</span></em></p>The Parramatta Female Factory has been identified as a site of abuse by the royal commission. Now a community-led campaign is transforming it into a ‘site of conscience’.Bonney Djuric, Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW Art & Design, UNSW SydneyLily Hibberd, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, UNSW SydneyLinda Steele, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/891452017-12-20T19:04:55Z2017-12-20T19:04:55ZRoyal commission sheds light on another uncomfortable truth: harmful sexual behaviour in children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200070/original/file-20171219-5004-v2ixd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Australia, as in most comparable countries, the development of a proper understanding of child sexual abuse has been appallingly slow. In the absence of an appropriate policy framework to prevent child sexual abuse, generations of children have endured terrible harm. </p>
<p>Within the broad scope of “child sexual abuse”, one issue has been a particular subject of silence, confusion, and fear. Harmful sexual behaviours by children continue to be very poorly understood. </p>
<p>Through private interviews, written submissions, expert evidence, and a case study focused on harmful sexual behaviours in schools, the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au">Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> focused its considerable analytical expertise on this much-neglected issue. <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/children-harmful-sexual-behaviours">The findings</a> demand our attention and action.</p>
<h2>The commission’s findings</h2>
<p>During private sessions, the commission heard that nearly one in six survivors of child sexual abuse had been abused by a person under 18. Incidents had occurred across a range of institutional settings, including out of home care, school, and youth detention. During its term, the commission built a nuanced picture of the harms endured by children subjected to sexual abuse by another child:</p>
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<p>We became aware that children with harmful sexual behaviours harming other children is a kind of abuse that has occurred across all levels of society and in many different settings, in historical and contemporary times.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-sweeping-reforms-for-catholic-church-to-end-child-abuse-89141">Royal commission recommends sweeping reforms for Catholic Church to end child abuse</a>
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<p>The commission’s work dispels the powerful misconception that children with these behaviours warrant the same response as adults who perpetrate child sexual abuse. In many cases, these behaviours in children are a trauma response, a replication of prior abuse, or a reaction to exposure to pornography. The commission reports that children exposed to violence in the home are considerably over-represented in the group of children with harmful sexual behaviours. </p>
<p>Further distinguishing children from adult perpetrators, the commission affirmed that children’s developmental stage means they have a particular capacity for rehabilitation and, when provided with appropriate therapy, are unlikely to continue with the behaviours. </p>
<p>Yet a <a href="https://theconversation.com/children-with-sexualised-behaviours-need-support-not-silence-and-stigma-60101">widespread lack of understanding</a> about these behaviours means that children are not always provided with the appropriate response:</p>
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<p>We learned that few people understand how to identify, react and respond to children’s harmful sexual behaviours or fully appreciate the damage the behaviours can cause.</p>
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<p>“Harmful sexual behaviours” encompasses a broad range of acts, and the commission is clear that a one-size-fits-all response is inadequate. At one end of the spectrum, a child’s problematic (rather than harmful) behaviour may be outside the developmentally-appropriate range, or outside accepted social norms, such as self-stimulation in public. The commission recommends that early and appropriate responses require adults who work with children have knowledge about children’s sexual development. </p>
<p>Where a child’s behaviour harms other children, adults, or animals, it is important that the seriousness of the behaviours be acknowledged. Timely reporting and appropriate specialist assessments are also paramount.</p>
<p>At present, the lack of understanding in Australia means incidents may be overlooked or dismissed as child’s play - an outcome recounted repeatedly to the commission. Where adults dismiss or deny harmful incidents, they actively perpetuate the harm for both the child with the behaviours, and children subjected to the behaviours. </p>
<h2>The commission’s recommendations</h2>
<p>At present, policy and therapeutic responses <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29765755/Australias_Response_to_Sexualised_or_Sexually_Abusive_Behaviours_in_Children_and_Young_People">vary between states and territories</a>. The commission found that:</p>
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<p>Overall, Australia lacks a comprehensive overarching framework to guide formal systems, individual institutions and practitioners on how to provide effective, consistent responses to harmful sexual behaviours by children.</p>
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<p>Addressing this requires leadership from all levels of government. The commission has called on government to:</p>
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<li>fund a network of specialised therapeutic services; </li>
<li>facilitate timely and expert assessments and referrals; and </li>
<li>ensure that clinicians in this specialised field are provided with ongoing professional training and clinical supervision.</li>
</ul>
<p>The commission also stresses the importance of ongoing research and evaluation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-report-makes-preventing-institutional-sexual-abuse-a-national-responsibility-88564">Royal commission report makes preventing institutional sexual abuse a national responsibility</a>
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<p>The commission placed considerable emphasis on education, consistent with the public health model that identifies the importance of prevention and early intervention. It noted that child sexual abuse prevention education is a priority, but is not available to children in all schools. Research also shows that while educating children is important, it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/programs-to-prevent-child-sexual-abuse-increase-knowledge-and-skills-but-do-they-reduce-risks-40371">only part of the answer</a>. </p>
<p>To address the lack of understanding, the commission recommends education on preventing harmful sexual behaviours be provided to the broader community. This includes parents, carers, and professionals that engage with children.</p>
<p>The commission’s work, and the testimony of survivors, has brought to light an issue that has been denied for far too long. </p>
<p>It is understandable that many people find it confronting to contemplate children engaging in acts that cause such harm. This must now be put aside. It is infinitely more confronting to know that the ignorance or inaction of adults perpetuates harm, and denies children the therapeutic supports they need. </p>
<p>Ensuring that we are educated about <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_10_children_with_harmful_sexual_behaviours.pdf">developmentally appropriate sexual behaviours</a> is an excellent place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy O'Brien currently receives funding from Australia's National Research Organisation on Women's Safety for a project to investigate good practice in delivering and evaluating therapeutic services to adolescents with harmful sexual behaviours.
Wendy appeared as expert witness for Case Study 45 for the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This case study concerned institutional responses to harmful sexual behaviours in schools.
Previously, Wendy worked for the Australian Crime Commission, where she conducted research on legal and therapeutic responses to children and young people with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours.
</span></em></p>The royal commission’s work, and the testimony of survivors, has brought to light an issue that has been denied for far too long.Wendy O'Brien, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.