AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Editorial
Case by case, disgraced institution by disgraced institution, our eyes are being opened. The royal commission charged with investigating how institutions deal with child sexual abuse is remaking our understanding of the people and places we entrust with the safekeeping of our children.
Reputations have crumbled before the measured march of the commission’s inquiries. It has exposed to national scrutiny a rotten core of cover-ups and cowardice within some of our most respected organisations; the blind eye turned to molesters, the benefit of the doubt given to workmates, policies to prevent or redress abuse never practised, the bottom line placed above compassion for victims, and the guarding of reputation above everything.
Time and again we have been floored by the failure of authority figures to understand the nature of child sexual abuse and their legal obligations. Time and again, we have heard victims were disbelieved by those they turned to for help.
Perhaps former prime minister Julia Gillard understood what it would mean when she announced the royal commission in late 2012 – but for most the sweep of its investigations has been a revelation: from government homes and Christian orphanages to the Yeshiva colleges in Bondi and Melbourne, from Swimming Australia to the YMCA, from Pentacostal churches to the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, and from St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide to Knox Grammar on Sydney’s north shore. No one can say this has been a witch hunt against the Catholic Church or the former archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell. Nor can we escape the conclusion that abuse is possible in any institution where people have power over the vulnerable, no matter its trusted reputation.
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