Christian Brothers Failed to Prevent Child Sex Abuse - Saw It As "Moral Lapse"
By Aleisha Orr
Leaders of the Christian Brothers order failed to prevent sexual abuse of children living in four of its West Australian institutions, a report has found. The report, compiled by the Royal Commission, found that in every decade between 1919 and the 1960s, the relevant Christian Brothers Provincial Council knew of allegations of sexual abuse around Australia - but that sexual abuse of children was viewed as, and referred to as, a 'moral lapse' or 'weakness'. Part of the commision's report, Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, looks in to abuse that took place at Castledare Junior Orphanage, St Vincent's Orphanage Clontarf, St Mary's Agricultural School Tardun and Bindoon Farm School. The report comes after a hearing in Perth earlier this year, where eleven men gave evidence and made allegations of sexual abuse against 16 named Brothers and told of physical and emotional abuse. Realeased on Friday, the report found "the leadership of the Christian Brothers during the period 1947 to 1968 failed to manage each of the institutions, so as to prevent the sexual abuse of children living in those institutions". Not only did many children experience abuse in these institutions, it was found the Christian Brothers also "failed to provide all boys at the institutions with an opportunity to obtain an education". The report said that "in taking children into care, the Christian Brothers were obligated to provide for them and educate them. This was not done properly in all cases. Many of the children did not have any real education and instead were put to physical labour." There was also at least one instance in which a Brother, after being the subject of an allegation concerning children, was transferred to another Christian Brothers' institution where he had contact with children. While the report noted that in the 1990s the Christian Brothers "took a number of actions on the issue of child sexual abuse and related matters within its order", it also found that meetings with their lawyers were not focused on settling proceedings. Instead, "the concern was the cost of the proceedings" and "there was no sentiment of recognising the suffering of the survivors." Despite the WA Child Welfare Department conducted inspections, the report found "the department had significantly less responsibility for the children than those within the institutions who were caring for the children on a daily basis". Details of the challenges faced by boys who lived at Tardun and Bindoon were described in the report as "geographically isolated". "The state authorities played a limited role contributing to the lack of access that the boys had to adults outside the institutions to whom they may have disclosed their conditions, including the abuse," the report said. "The physical conditions at the institutions permitted no privacy and required the boys to be naked in front of the Brothers and each other." The report found the boys had no privacy from the Brothers and were put in positions where they were alone with them. "The boys were required to make up Brothers' rooms, which meant that Brothers were able to be alone with boys in their rooms." Of the 775 allegations made against the Christian Brothers, 196 allegations related to abuse at the four institutions. The 196 allegations were made by 1010 complainants about abuse at the four institutions discussed in this report. Of those 101 complainants, 96 complainants received a monetary settlement. The total amount paid in compensation in response to those allegations was about $3,341,000, giving an average payment of about $36,700 per complainant who received a monetary settlement.
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