AUSTRALIA
10 Daily
August 15, 2019
By James Norman
Surely if there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the right of children to live free from any kind of sexual abuse should be of paramount concern for all citizens in a civilised society.
And in order to protect those rights, anyone who receives knowledge of the abuse of a child surely has a legal and moral responsibility to report it to police. Such laws already exist for doctors, teachers, nurses, midwives, police and boarding school supervisors — and so they should.
This week the Victorian government has introduced new legislation aimed at extending this obligation to religious leaders — forcing priests to reveal to authorities any admissions of child sexual abuse made during church confessions.
The new law will apply to religious and spiritual leaders of all denominations, and includes a penalty of up to three years in jail for any religious leader who refuses to comply. Similar laws are already in place or soon to take effect in South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.
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