Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Child Abuse

  • AUSTRALIA

    Royal Commission hatred is childish

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 June 2015
    30 Comments

    In my early years of secondary school there was a fine footballer in the senior team of another school. I had never met him, but I hated him with a passion. This memory returned in recent weeks when reading of the vilification of Adam Goodes, and some of the opinion pieces on the Ballarat sexual abuse. Hatred avoids questions by trying to obliterate those whose lives pose them to us.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    Border Farce crime and punishment

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 10 June 2015

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Could Immigration 'secrecy' act trump mandatory reporting of abuse?

    • Justin Glyn
    • 09 June 2015
    6 Comments

    All Australian states and territories have mandatory reporting legislation requiring compulsory disclosure of suspected child abuse by relevant professionals. The Australian Border Force Act requires the permission of the Secretary before any disclosure of criminal conduct is made to the relevant authorities. Should an Immigration professional who works with children fulfil their mandatory reporting obligations if this permission is not granted (and face two years in prison) or not?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The burning of a tainted church

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 April 2015
    76 Comments

    The burning of a church offers possibilities. It would be a bold and noble gesture, exactly measured to the destruction done to the Catholic Church by priests' sexual abuse, to leave the ruined walls of St James as a shrine to the victims, a record of the evil that was done, and a pledge that never again will children be unprotected in the Catholic Church.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Restorative justice for child sexual abuse victims

    • Vic O'Callaghan
    • 17 November 2014
    15 Comments

    Total focus on designing the right professional standards policy could be creating a hole, where all that is heard is a droning 'let's move on' message. Where are the stories of people gathering to help mend and heal themselves and the victims of this horrific episode in our history?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Church legally liable for pre-1996 child sexual abuse

    • Frank Brennan
    • 22 October 2014
    47 Comments

    Reviewing Cardinal Pell's evidence to the Royal Commission in August, I have concluded that Catholics need to accept moral responsibility and legal liability for all child sexual abuse committed by clergy prior to 1996, regardless of what might be the moral or legal position after 1996 when improved measures for supervision and dismissal of errant clergy were put in place. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The challenge of a five-year Royal Commission

    • Frank Brennan
    • 09 September 2014
    17 Comments

    All church members, and not just the victims who continue to suffer, need light, transparency and accountability if the opaque injustices of the past are to be rectified. Justice Peter McClellan and his fellow commissioners have to do more to bring the states and territories to the table and to get real buy-in by all governments. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Controlling information about child abuse

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 August 2014
    8 Comments

    Child abuse is occurring within the Federal Government's immigration detention regime at the same time as the government sponsored Child Abuse Royal Commission is seeking to achieve justice for victims of past abuses in churches and institutions. After visiting Christmas Island, paediatrician Elizabeth Elliott said that 'when it comes to children in need, most Australians feel compassion' but compassion had 'gone missing'. What is behind our selective compassion?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Church congregations have role in healing abuse victims

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 18 August 2014
    33 Comments

    The recent independent redress scheme announcement by the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council is welcome. However it is not simply a matter for church hierarchy. Congregations need to be brought into the process of healing and reparation, which might include liturgies of lamentation and practical ways to make the church a safe place for victims of abuse.

    READ MORE
  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Assessing the Catholic Church's child abuse culpability

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 06 August 2014
    5 Comments

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Scott Morrison's conflict of interest

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 August 2014
    13 Comments

    The majority of Australians voted for a government strong on border protection. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is delivering in spades, so it seems they're prepared to turn a blind eye to disputed claims of child neglect, even if he is their legal guardian. Their only hope is that accounts of their suffering will gain the kind of exposure and momentum that led to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    An adequate response to child sexual abuse

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 July 2014
    14 Comments

    We might expect that research into the causes and history of sexual abuse will continue and increase. As part of its owning of the crimes that have flourished within it, the challenge for the Church is to take such research seriously, particularly when it touches on the part played by such aspects of Catholic life, culture and governance as clerical celibacy, attitudes to women and sexual morality, and clericalism.

    READ MORE