Call for Churches to Be Included in Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

Care Appointments
June 4, 2015

http://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/scotland/item/37373-call-for-churches-to-be-included-in-scottish-child-abuse-inquiry

The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) has today called on the Scottish National Inquiry into Historic Child Abuse to include within its remit abuse which involved churches.

CCPAS say there is a growing chorus of concern, being voiced by many survivors of abuse, that churches are being “let off the hook” in this process. This is despite them being places where abuse is just as likely to have occurred as institutions that are covered by the Inquiry, such as residential care homes and independent boarding schools.

Simon Bass, CEO of CCPAS, commented: “This serious omission is all the more surprising when one considers that there is, taking place right now, another Inquiry into abuse within institutions where churches are most definitely having to give account of their actions. This is the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which in this respect could quite easily serve as a model for Scotland.

“The Australian approach is highly relevant to the forthcoming Inquiry in Scotland, for it has since 2013 been hearing extensive evidence of incidents of abuse within institutions. These have included children’s homes and schools run by churches and other religious organisations. But it is also taking evidence of abuse perpetrated by members of the institutions of church denominations themselves - and how they have responded to those disclosures. Churches have therefore had to give evidence and explain why they acted as they did.