The Victorian Parliament's Family and Community Development Committee has released
Betrayal of Trust [
PDF], the report of its Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations. The two volume document precedes reporting by the national royal commission on the same subject.
The report notes that
The 2012 Cummins Inquiry identified concerns regarding the handling of criminal
child abuse in religious organisations in Victoria, and recommended that:
A formal investigation should be conducted into the processes by which religious
organisations respond to the criminal abuse of children by religious personnel within
their organisations.
In response to this recommendation and through the Governor in Council, the Victorian
Government requested that the joint investigatory Family and Community Development
Committee undertake an inquiry into these processes. Members of Parliament from
multiple political parties and both Houses of Parliament comprise the Committee.
In establishing this Inquiry, the Government requested the Committee inquire into
responses to criminal child abuse by all non-government organisations that interact
directly with children. In addition to its primary focus on religious organisations, the
Committee has considered recreational, sporting, childcare, education, community and
other child-related services and activities operated by non-government organisations.
It continues that -
In undertaking its Inquiry, the Committee asked some obvious but fundamental
questions about the occurrence of criminal child abuse in religious and other nongovernment
organisations:
• what is the extent of criminal child abuse in organisations and how has it been
able to occur
• why was it not addressed long ago
• is the abuse to be properly viewed as the activity of a relatively few aberrant
individuals for which they alone could be held responsible
• are there others (including the leadership of organisations involved) that
contributed through organisational cultures, structures and policies, and that
should be held accountable
• what should we do now to secure justice for those who have suffered and continue
to do so
• how do we, as a community, protect children in the future?
The Committee comments that
Evidence and information provided to the Inquiry showed that even today, leaders
of some non-government organisations are reluctant to fully acknowledge that they
adopted policies that gave first priority to protecting the interests of their organisation.
It is beyond dispute that some trusted organisations made a deliberate choice not to
follow processes for reporting and responding to allegations of criminal child abuse.
There has been a substantial body of credible evidence presented to the Inquiry and
ultimately concessions made by senior representatives of religious bodies, including
the Catholic Church, that they had taken steps with the direct objective of concealing
wrongdoing.
The Committee welcomed the commitment made by many organisations during the
course of the Inquiry to actively cooperate with any new schemes that the Victorian
Government establishes in response to the Inquiry’s recommendations. The CEO
of the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Mr Francis Sullivan,
recently stated that the community should ‘judge us on our actions’. It is reasonable
for the community to expect that organisations will honour their undertakings.
It goes on to note that
The Committee heard graphic accounts that detailed horrendous and traumatic
experiences of victims abused as children in the care of non-government organisations
that spanned a period of decades through to more recent times.
Victims provided confronting accounts of their feelings of fear and helplessness when
subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse by personnel in organisations.
In circumstances of sexual abuse, many explained that as children they lacked the
intellectual framework to understand their abuse. They spoke of subsequent feelings
of guilt and embarrassment, and a belief that they needed to conceal what they felt
was a deeply shameful secret.
Children not in the care of their families told of their experiences of criminal abuse
in institutions and the feeling of losing their identities. Many absconded only to be
returned and subjected to further abuse.
Sexual and other criminal offences committed against children are not a new
phenomenon. The Committee challenged the assertion by some non-government
organisations that child abuse had been poorly understood in the past:
• When was the commission of a sexual offence upon a child not a matter of great
seriousness under our criminal law, against the principles of all of our various
religious faiths, and abhorrent to our community?
• When was it not understood that children are vulnerable to physical and sexual
abuse and that they need protection?
• How many complaints or established incidents of abuse would be necessary before
it was acknowledged that a systemic problem existed within some organisations,
and that their structures, processes and cultures required full investigation?
Conduct of this kind has been condemned by society for centuries. It has attracted
severe penalties under our criminal law for a long time. Up until 1949 buggery of a
child under the age of 14 and rape were offences that carried the death penalty.
Expert knowledge of the effects of child abuse has been in the public domain since
the 1960s. It is widely recognised that children subjected to criminal abuse in
organisations and institutions often experience lifelong impacts that include mental
health problems, addiction issues, relationship difficulties, issues with anger and
difficulties with life skills, education and employment.
In addition, the consequences of criminal abuse suffered by children in organisations
and institutions can be intensified due to the often high moral standing of the
perpetrator. More specifically, children abused by a minister of religion or a spiritual
leader have been found to develop a sense of alienation from the world. Abuse by a
trusted religious figure can destroy a child’s belief that the world is a safe place and
can make the world seem chaotic and unstructured. Like most people, victims want
the opportunity to feel safe and to belong to their community.
The effects of criminal child abuse in organisations also extend to families. Parents
explained to the Inquiry their feelings of profound guilt that they had not protected
their child and had been drawn in by the grooming tactics of the perpetrator.
Some victims of child abuse blamed their parents for not protecting them. Inquiry
participants told the Committee of their families being fragmented and damaged as
a consequence of the abuse a family member has experienced.
Some local communities, particularly religious communities, have been ruptured by
the responses of organisations to criminal child abuse by their employees and other
personnel. Community members spoke of a loss of trust in organisations they had
previously held in high regard.
These impacts of the criminal abuse of children in the care of organisations have
implications for society more broadly, including significant costs to the community
in expenditure on health and education, as well as productivity loss.
Adult victims of criminal child abuse by personnel in trusted organisations told
the Inquiry they were seeking justice for what they often felt to be the loss of their
innocence as a child. They wanted to see consequences for perpetrators—to see them
removed from their position in the organisation, reported to police and potentially and validate them by providing an expression of remorse and a meaningful
acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
The Committee heard, however, that many victims were not given the basic level of
respect they expected and deserved. Organisations often did not assume responsibility
for the harm victims had suffered, and sometimes even concealed the truth. Victims
spoke of ‘unfinished business’ and resentment resulting from the inadequate response
of the organisation to their disclosure of abuse.
Adding to victims’ sense of injustice was their feeling of betrayal by organisations,
particularly the Catholic Church. This feeling resulted from the inconsistent
approaches by organisations to victims versus offenders—that is, giving inadequate
support to victims, while providing pastoral, legal and financial support to offenders.
They spoke of unfulfilled promises by leaders in the organisation and the trivialising
of their experiences.
The Committee noted that
organisations have been handling criminal child abuse
by people employed or associated with them for a long time, and the majority of the
evidence from victims to the Inquiry indicated that between the 1950s and 1980s
the response of specific organisations to such abuse was seriously inadequate and
sometimes non-existent, particularly in religious organisations.
Reflecting on past responses to the criminal abuse of children can provide insights
into how organisations have evolved in their systems and processes over time. It also
assists in understanding the enduring nature of organisational culture and the extent
to which organisations learn from past mistakes.
To better understand their past handling of this problem, the Committee focused
particularly on the religious organisations that the majority of evidence and other
information received concerned—that is, the Catholic Church in Victoria, the
Salvation Army and the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne.
Evidence to the Inquiry revealed that historically these organisations were often
motivated by self-interest and the protection of the organisation. This resulted in
serious consequences for the safety and protection of children.
In regard to the Catholic Church specifically, the Committee found that rather than
being instrumental in exposing the criminal abuse of children and the extent of the
problem, senior leaders of the Church:
• trivialised the problem
• contributed to abuse not being disclosed or not being responded to at all prior to
the 1990s
• ensured that the Victorian community remained uninformed of the abuse
• ensured that perpetrators were not held accountable, with the tragic result being
that children continued to be abused by some religious personnel when it could
have been avoided.
Analysis of the Catholic Church’s past handling of this problem shows that as an
organisation it had many of the internal features of an organisation at high risk of its
personnel perpetrating criminal child abuse. These features include its:
• trusted role in caring for children
• culture and power
• complex hierarchy and structure
• teachings and beliefs
• processes for responding to allegations—including the failure to report abuse to
the police
• response to alleged offenders—including the relocation and movement of offenders
and failure to suspend them from their duties.
The Committee found that other organisations, particularly other religious
organisations, share many of these features, which have continued to influence the
responses of many organisations to allegations of criminal child abuse to the present
day. The Committee considered that such features and consequent responses by
organisations may help to explain why many victims remain aggrieved. Importantly,
the way in which an organisation has handled reports of suspected criminal child
abuse is inextricably linked to the desire of victims for justice.
It also comments that -
It is well established that victims of child abuse often delay disclosing their abuse for
years or decades and, in some cases, never tell anyone. The Committee heard that many
victims of past child abuse by personnel in organisations disclosed their abuse to an
organisation and were then directed into an internal process to ‘settle’ their matter.
In the mid-1990s, the Catholic Church created two systems for responding to
allegations of criminal child abuse, both of which are still currently operating—the
Melbourne Response (applicable only to the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne)
and Towards Healing. In addition, some other religious and non-government
organisations have processes in place to respond to similar allegations of past criminal
child abuse by their personnel. The Committee acknowledges that some approaches
were designed by organisations to be an independent, alternative form of justice for
victims, but victims told the Inquiry that they did not view them this way.
The Committee accessed many files relevant to the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne,
the Salvation Army and the two systems used by the Catholic Church. It also
accessed internal complaint files regarding individuals within some orders and
dioceses that form part of the Catholic Church in Victoria.
In its review of the existing internal systems and processes adopted by these religious
organisations, the Committee identified the following features:
• They are not truly independent of the organisations.
• They contain no existing recognition of or support for secondary victims of
criminal child abuse.
• Their approach to financial compensation often does not provide a clear explanation
of the basis on which an organisation makes a financial payment, how the amount
awarded is determined and obligations regarding confidentiality.
• They rarely encourage participants in the process to seek independent legal advice
before reaching an agreement that might affect their subsequent legal rights.
• They tend to provide generic apologies that do not focus on the specific
circumstances of the individual and the role played by both the perpetrator and
the organisation in regard to the damage suffered by the victim.
• Only some provide counselling support, and some of those that do tend to provide
inadequate counselling for a number of reasons, including limited sessions offered,
counselling services not tailored to individual needs or counselling services
operated internally by the organisation responsible for the abuse.
• Some demonstrated a reluctance to implement effective disciplinary processes
for offenders in their organisation, such as suspending them from their duties,
removing their title or their membership with the organisation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Committee identified the following areas for reform:
• Stronger requirements for organisations to take responsibility to protect children in
their care including taking reasonable steps to protect them from criminal abuse.
• Improved responses to allegations of criminal child abuse in non-government
organisations, including oversight of these responses by an independent body and
compulsory reporting to police.
• Reforms to the criminal law to improve the potential for perpetrators and those
who conceal their crimes to be prosecuted and punished, and the introduction of
grooming as separate offence.
• Reforms to civil laws to make it easier for victims to sue non-government
organisations.
• An independent, alternative avenue of justice for those who cannot make a claim
through the civil justice system.
