Appendix A – The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission uncovered the hidden nature, complex causes and devastating impacts of institutional child sexual abuse in Australia. It highlighted the failings of governments, institutions and communities to protect and nurture children and young people.

Although the Royal Commission focused on child sexual abuse in institutions, it recognised that most allegations of child sexual abuse relate to abuse outside institutions. It recognised that child sexual abuse is mostly perpetrated by someone the child or young person knows, including a family member.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published its Final Report in December 2017. 

The Royal Commission made 409 recommendations to Australian, state and territory governments and institutions to better protect children and young people from child sexual abuse. 

The Australian, state and territory governments agreed to report on how they are implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations each year for 5 years. This reporting started from December 2018. 

The Australian Government also supports organisations that work with children and young people to produce their own annual progress reports. 

Private sessions

During the Royal Commission’s private sessions, more than 8,000 victims and survivors, or their supporters, shared their stories.

From the Royal Commission’s private sessions (as at May 2017):

• most of the victims and survivors who told their stories were men (64.3%)
• almost all victims and survivors (93.8%) were abused by a man
• of those who gave their age, more than half were first sexually abused when they were between 10 and 14 years old
• female victims and survivors were generally younger than males when they were first sexually abused
• of the 67.3% of victims and survivors who gave the age of the perpetrator at the time of their sexual abuse – 83.8% were abused by an adult
• of the 6,875 victims and survivors who attended private sessions, 1,129 (16.4%) were abused by another child
• 14.3% of all victims and survivors were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• 4.3% of all victims and survivors shared that they had a disability at the time of the abuse, however, many people with disability face extra barriers to telling people about abuse
• the most common roles of adult perpetrators in institutions were teachers and people in religious ministries.

When institutions fail to protect children and young people

The Royal Commission looked at how the cultures and practices in institutions allow child sexual abuse to happen. It also looked at how they can get in the way of detecting and responding to it.

Signs that an institution’s culture may fail to prevent child sexual abuse from happening or respond well when it does, include: 

• a culture of secrecy, power and control
• a lack of leadership and governance that promotes and embeds child safety
• not telling children and young people about their rights or not including them, or their families, kin and carers and communities, in making decisions
• not treating children and young people equally because of their disability, sex, gender or cultural, social or financial background
• poor screening or training for staff and volunteers who work with children and young people
• unsafe physical environments and poor protections in online environments
• not having good, publicly available or regularly reviewed child safeguarding policies, such as complaint handling processes.

The Royal Commission identified structural protections that make institutions safer for children and young people. The 10 National Principles for Child Safe Organisations explain what these protections are. All Australian, state and territory governments endorsed the National Principles in February 2019.

More information

You can find more information about the Royal Commission on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse website.