UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Mail
Monday 20 July 2015
Stephen Barber
Diocese of Oxford safeguarding advisor
The public inquiry into child sexual abuse has finally got off the ground.
At the third attempt, a chair was found: Justice Lowell Goddard, who is from New Zealand.
This means she is independent of the establishment in the UK, which could not be said of the previous candidates.
She is a judge, so used to hearing and assessing evidence.
She is a woman, which is important since some people suspect that some men do not take the sexual abuse of children as seriously as do most women.
The inquiry is into whether “public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked for the Church of England to be examined first.
This is because we who work for the church know perfectly well that we have not always got it right, either in listening to survivors of abuse or in dealing effectively with perpetrators.
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