Abuse victims need justice, not sidesteps
Initially at least, PMJacinda Ardern has excluded faith-based institutions from the government’s planned inquiry into the historical abuse of children in state care.
Reportedly, any role, say for the likes of the Catholic Church, will be merely to observe and learn from any revelations arising from this self-limited focus upon state-run facilities.
Arguably, such a narrowing of focus would be unfortunate. Certainly, the state’s responsibilities differed when the children concerned were in religious institutions, rather than state-run ones. Yet it is not as if the state’s responsibility ended at the church gates. As Ardern pointed out to RNZ, ‘‘the state’s reach in this country often went beyond state institutions, and the inquiry would look at the full process.’’ Regardless, Ardern added, ‘‘the primary role of the inquiry [would be] to look at the state’s responsibility.’’
Arguably, it shouldn’t be – and not only because Australia’s wideranging commission of inquiry recently found that a high prevalence of child abuse had occurred within religious caring institutions. More to the point, the inquiry here surely isn’t just a technical exercise undertaken mainly to ‘‘look at the state’s responsibility.’’ Surely, its ‘‘primary role’’ is to provide justice and relief to the victims – and any decision to fence off the investigation on the basis of where it occurred (state-run yes, faith-based, no) seems arbitrary, and one driven perhaps by political convenience.
If so, that would be a disappointing outcome from a PM who has been so adamant about her desire to put the wellbeing of children first.
For any politician though, Australia offers a sobering lesson on what a more inclusive inquiry might entail. Their commission of inquiry took five years, ran to 21 volumes, and made 400 recommendations. It called, for instance, for an end to the secrecy of the confessional – through which the Church offers spiritual absolution to the abuser, while arguably leaving the children vulnerable to a relapse by the perpetrator, given that he is not automatically reported to the authorities.
Moreover, as the Guardian noted, ‘‘the Commission found that while celibacy for clergy was not a direct cause of abuse, it elevated the risk when compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious figures had privileged access to children.’’
Ultimately, history cannot be fenced off in the way the current government seems to have in mind. In the era of Pope Francis, even some voices in the Catholic Church – given the fallout from two decades of priestly child abuse scandals – apparently want to have the Church’s institutions included within the scope of the government inquiry.
Bill Kilgallon, who managed the handling of abuse complaints for the Catholic Church in New Zealand, has publicly expressed disappointment that the inquiry would not cover religious institutions. By including them, Kilgallon added, this would encourage victims to come forward.
Exactly. If the wellbeing of the victims is to be the main focus, there is a strong case for wider terms of reference.
The attempt at separation may be an illusion, anyway. How state care and faith-based care differed – but also interacted – has to be an integral part of explaining just how these systems of child abuse evolved, and were hidden, for so long.