Unveiling Silence: The Need for Accountability in Institutions of Faith and Power

Silence often feels like the safest response for those who survive abuse within powerful institutions. It shields survivors from further harm and keeps the machinery of these organisations running smoothly without drawing unwanted attention. Yet, silence also serves the interests of these institutions by hiding the truth and allowing harmful patterns to persist. This post explores why breaking silence is essential, how institutions manage reputation over protection, and why accountability must replace silence in places of faith and power.

When no one speaks, the building remains immaculate & harm stays hidden.

The Weight of Silence in Institutions

Survivors of abuse within institutions often face a difficult choice: speak out and risk backlash, or remain silent and protect themselves. Silence feels safer because it avoids confrontation with powerful systems that control resources, legal processes, and public narratives. But this silence is not neutral. It allows institutions to maintain their image while failing to address the root causes of abuse.

In many cases, survivors’ experiences are confined to private spaces such as therapy rooms or legal offices. These settings offer some support but also isolate the survivor from public scrutiny. Institutions use legal language, confidentiality agreements, and carefully crafted statements to absorb complaints without meaningful change. This creates a cycle where promises of progress are made but rarely fulfilled.

How Institutions Prioritise Reputation Over Protection

Institutions of faith and power often have complex governance structures designed to manage risk and liability. These structures include legal teams, financial resources, and communication strategies focused on preserving reputation. Unfortunately, this focus can overshadow the institution’s responsibility to protect vulnerable individuals.

For example, some institutions respond to abuse allegations by:

• Settling cases quietly to avoid public exposure

• Limiting access to information through confidentiality agreements

• Framing abuse as isolated incidents rather than systemic problems

• Emphasising forgiveness or redemption without accountability

  
  

These strategies protect the institution’s image but leave survivors without justice or support. They also allow abusive behaviours to continue unchecked.

The Role of Culture in Enabling Abuse

Beyond formal structures, culture plays a significant role in enabling abuse. Historically, many institutions foster environments where questioning authority is discouraged, and loyalty is prized above transparency. This culture of silence pressures survivors to stay quiet and discourages others from speaking up.

Faith language can sometimes complicate this dynamic. When institutions use spiritual concepts to explain or minimise abuse, survivors may feel guilt or shame for breaking silence. This creates a barrier to accountability and healing.

Why Public Accountability Matters

Breaking my silence publicly was not an abstract act of courage. It was a necessary one.

For a long time, I carried the weight that institutions quietly rely on survivors to shoulder alone. The emotional labour. The reputational risk. The unspoken expectation that staying quiet is somehow more dignified, more ‘Christian’, more reasonable. What speaking out exposed for me was the distance between what institutions say they stand for and how they actually behave when harm occurs on their watch.

Going public is not about an individual incident. It is about revealing patterns. Systems. Cultures that protect themselves first and ask survivors to absorb the cost.

When I speak openly, I am not trying to sensationalise harm or extract revenge. I am naming responsibility. Mine stops at surviving. Theirs does not.

Public accountability matters because it shifts the focus away from my credibility and onto institutional behaviour. It makes visible the failures that are otherwise dismissed as anomalies. It creates pressure where politeness and private correspondence never do. It opens space for other survivors to recognise themselves and realise they are not alone or imagining things.

Most importantly, it forces transparency. Not the glossy brochure kind. The operational kind. The kind that asks who knew what, when, and what was done in response.

Accountability, for me, is not about punishment or spectacle. It is about insisting that institutions reckon honestly with the role they played in enabling abuse, minimising harm, or prioritising reputation over people. It is about demanding that they do better, not just say they will.

Silence protected them. Speaking out protects the next person.

Practical Steps Toward Transparency and Justice

Institutions can take concrete actions to move beyond silence and toward accountability:

• Establish independent oversight bodies with survivor representation

• Remove confidentiality clauses that prevent survivors from speaking out

• Provide accessible and trauma-informed reporting mechanisms

• Train leaders and staff on abuse prevention and response

• Publicly report on abuse allegations and institutional responses

  
  

Survivors and advocates can support these changes by sharing their stories, demanding transparency, and holding institutions accountable through legal and social channels.

Supporting Survivors Without Exploiting Their Stories

What is often missing from conversations about survivors speaking publicly is the toll it takes on the person doing the speaking.

When I went public, the institution remained largely protected. Its name absorbed nothing. Its leaders stayed unnamed. Its resources buffered it from consequence. I did not have that insulation. I carried my face, my history, my credibility, and my nervous system into the open, knowing full well that scrutiny would land on me, not on the structures that failed.

What I needed was not admiration or applause. I needed support that was practical, human, and steady.

I needed to be listened to without being assessed. Not weighed for consistency. Not gently cross examined. Just heard, without judgment, without suspicion, without the quiet question of whether I was being difficult, emotional, or inconvenient.

I needed safe spaces where disclosure did not automatically trigger management responses, legal positioning, or reputation control. Spaces where my experience was not treated as a problem to be contained, but as something that deserved care.

I needed accessible mental health support that recognised the compounding impact of going public. Not just the original abuse, but the retaliation, the doubt, the exposure, the way your body never really gets to stand down once your name is out there.

I needed legal support that was trauma informed, transparent, and honest about power. Not just technically competent, but aware of how easily survivors can feel coerced by process, silence, or the fear of getting it wrong.

And I needed my choices respected. When to speak. How much to share. When to stop. I needed the freedom to change my mind without being framed as unreliable or strategic. Silence should never be interpreted as weakness, and disclosure should never be treated as a public asset once it is given.

If society genuinely wants survivors to speak, then it has to stop pretending that courage alone is enough. Speaking publicly costs something. In my case, it cost safety, stability, and a sense of anonymity I will never get back.

Support is not abstract. It is listening without agenda. Protection without control. Help without conditions. And the basic decency of understanding that institutions can withstand scrutiny far better than the people they harmed.

That imbalance is not accidental. And it does not correct itself.

This support helps survivors reclaim their voices without being re-traumatised.