The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

On 12 November 2012, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced her intention to advise the Governor General to establish a Royal Commission into how institutions across Australia had responded to child sexual abuse. After decades of whispers, sealed files, and institutional buck passing, the government finally put a national spotlight on the places that were supposed to protect children but too often protected themselves instead.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse became one of the country’s most significant exercises in truth telling. Over five years, it examined how schools, churches, sporting organisations and government bodies handled allegations of abuse. In other words, every cornerstone of “trusted Australian childhood” was asked, sometimes for the first time, to explain itself.

On 15 December 2017, the Commission handed its final report to the Governor General. Five years of testimony, evidence, and institutional discomfort distilled into volumes that Australia still has not finished digesting.

Below are findings that, unfortunately, are not abstract to me. They echo directly through my own experience.

Key Findings

All findings are taken directly from the Royal Commission’s final report.

• Abuse was identified in 1,069 schools across Australia.

• 31.8 percent of survivors, representing 2,186 individuals, reported being sexually abused in a school setting.

• Of those survivors, 71.8 percent were abused in religious schools and 4.1 percent in secular non government schools.

• 30.4 percent reported abuse in boarding schools. Of these cases, 96.8 percent occurred in non government boarding schools and 3.2 percent in government boarding schools. The Commission noted that prestige, hierarchy and silence tended to thrive in these environments.

• Grooming was a common tactic, often extending beyond children to include colleagues, parents and entire school cultures willing to look the other way.

• 88 percent of survivors were abused by adults, and 96.2 percent of those perpetrators were male.

• 58.4 percent were abused by teachers and 39.9 percent by individuals in religious ministry.

• Emotional abuse and neglect often accompanied sexual abuse, creating environments where disclosure became less likely and silence became normal.

• Non government schools, particularly religious and boarding schools, showed the highest rates of abuse. The Commission linked this to institutional prestige, rigid masculine cultures and a chronic absence of accountability.

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These findings form the architecture around which so many personal stories sit, including mine. None of this came from rumour or speculation. It came from evidence, testimony and the courage of thousands of survivors finally telling the truth that institutions refused to tell about themselves.

For anyone wanting to read the source material in full, it is available here:https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au