Sexual abuse as the core transgression of childhood innocence : Unintended consequences for care leavers
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Australian Studies Vol. 42, no. 2 (2018), p. 191-203
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- Description: The decision of the Gillard government to establish a royal commission in 2012 was acclaimed by care leavers. However, they were soon disillusioned: it was not the royal commission for which they had long struggled. Its terms of reference were too broad, encompassing a range of institutions never before the subject of official inquiries, yet also too narrowly focused on sexual abuse. Care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse were excluded. This paper argues that, while care leaver advocacy contributed to the decision to establish a royal commission, the agenda was a product of other pressures fuelled by state-based inquiries about cover-ups of sexual abuse of children, particularly by clergy. Sexual abuse could no longer be regarded as a sin to be handled in-house by institutions but a crime for which the state carried superordinate responsibility. The government had to intervene to address society’s “ultimate collective shame”. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has made a massive contribution to our understanding of child sexual abuse and to reforms in child protection policy and practice. But its mandate created unintended consequences, and questions remain about the unmet needs of care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse.
“Problems with records and recordkeeping practices are not confined to the past”: a challenge from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
- Authors: Golding, Frank
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 20, no. 1 (2020), p.
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- Description: This paper describes and analyses the campaign by the Care Leaver community and other stakeholders to bring about a royal commission into child abuse in Australia. Care Leavers did not get the royal commission they wanted and expected—other more powerful forces were at play—but the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) was highly effective in exposing the complex nature and extent of the problem of child sexual abuse, “the core transgression of childhood innocence”. This paper aims to show that, although the Royal Commission disappointed many Care Leavers with its narrow focus on sexual abuse, when it eventually reported on records and recordkeeping, the Commission surprised many by moving beyond its narrow remit. Issues relating to records and recordkeeping were not originally a prominent part of the Commission’s mandate, but they emerged as one of the crucial issues that influence the quality of the out-of-home Care experience and child protection. This finding has created a fresh context in which Care Leaver advocates, academics and other professionals can work together to further a new agenda for recordkeeping in out-of-home Care. © 2019, Springer Nature B.V.