Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Other Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Canberra, Australia (national) · 2017

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: final report

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

clergy, religious, and lay officers across 57 examined institutions

Organization

Commonwealth of Australia — Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Spiritual nexus

The Commission's core finding was that religious and quasi-religious authority over children in custodial and congregational settings — obedience owed to clergy, religious orders, elders and institutional leadership — was the mechanism that both enabled abuse and suppressed its disclosure across institutions spanning multiple traditions.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2017-12-15 · final report

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Australia — statutory inquiry. The five-year statutory inquiry — the largest of its kind ever conducted — held 57 public-hearing case studies, received evidence from over 8,000 survivors in private sessions, and referred more than 2,500 matters to police and prosecuting authorities. Faith-based institutions accounted for roughly 60% of allegations reported in private sessions by the end of 2016; the Commission examined Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church, Salvation Army, Jehovah's Witnesses, Australian Christian Churches, and Jewish (Yeshiva/Chabad) institutions among others.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • custodial and pastoral authority over children in religious-run homes, schools and congregations
  • institutional concealment and internal-only handling of complaints

Primary record

Sources

official statutory inquiry report inquiry report Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 'Final Report' (15 December 2017).

The Commission's own final-report landing page summarising the inquiry's scope, volumes and recommendations.

secondary reference background Wikipedia, 'Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.'

Corroborating summary of scale: 57 case studies, 8,000+ private sessions, 2,500+ police referrals.

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