Abuse victims get safe place

Project helps people come forward

VICTIMS of child sexual abuse will be able to share their experiences at a central London office.

The office will be open for five weeks, until December 19, and forms part of the Truth Project, which will be coming to different communities around England and Wales for short periods of time.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) hopes that the project will enable more victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to attend private sessions at more convenient locations, in addition to running sessions at its offices.

The office is at a confidential central London location and the process has been designed with great care to protect the identity of all victims and survivors who come forward.

Victims and survivors will be supported as they share their experience in person or in writing.

The scope, scale and trends identified by the Truth Project will feed directly into IICSA’s Research Project, which aims to gain an understanding of how best to protect children in future.

Nearly 500 victims and survivors have been invited to attend a Truth Project session in England or Wales.

Drusilla Sharpling, inquiry panel member and head of the Truth Project, said: “The courage of victims and survivors who have come forward and will come forward to the Truth Project should not be underestimated.

“They play a vital role in our work to establish what went wrong in the past and why it went wrong. If we are to improve child safeguarding practices in future, we must listen and learn.”

Visit the IICSA website at www.iicsa.org.uk/ victims-and-survivors for more information, or call 0800 917 1000.