AUSTRALIA
J-Wire
March 25, 2016
This article is written by a female survivor of child sexual abuse in an institutional setting in the Australian Jewish community.
Dr. Michelle Meyer is CEO of Tzedek, an advocacy service for survivors of child sexual abuse, is promoting her voice, both as an opportunity for her to tell her story but also in the hope that it will encourage others to speak up. And whilst this story took place in the Australian Jewish community, it is also an international story.
A victim tells her story:
The Catch 22 of Case 22.
Established in 2013, the work of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues throughout the nation. As it does so, my community struggles to find its feet on the shifting sands.
In the wake of the Royal Commission’s case study #22 – its probe of the the Yeshivah/Beth Rivkah community – rabbis have stood down, boards have been dissolved and reconstituted, committees were appointed and policies and procedures have been revisited and reviewed. New legislation and safeguards have also been implemented.
But as the fallout continues and the school and community hasten to recalibrate, a number of issues have been overlooked, two of which are: the lack of the female voice in the narrative, and the cultural stigma attached to having been sexually abused.
The lack of the female voice in the narrative
With all due respect to the Royal Commission and with high regard to the tight parameters and terms of reference that it must work within, the absence of female witnesses leaves the investigation of events at the Yeshivah-Beth-Rivkah schools incomplete.
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