New Delhi: There’s more to Britain than Liz Truss’s resignation. Child sex abuse is an epidemic here, affecting millions of victims, and those who work with young people should be prosecuted if they fail to report it, a seven-year public inquiry concluded on Thursday.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said institutions and politicians had prioritised reputations over the welfare of young people, meaning horrific acts were hidden away for decades, while there were still inadequate protection measures in place. The inquiry, one of the largest and most expensive investigations of its kind ever undertaken in Britain, said the issue was a global crisis, where children would be at risk unless urgent action was taken, News 18 reported from a Reuters report.
“The nature and scale of the abuse we encountered was shocking and deeply disturbing,” its chair Alexis Jay, a social care expert, told reporters. “This is not just a historical aberration which happened decades ago, it is an ever-increasing problem and a national epidemic.”
The inquiry was set up in July 2014 following a series of shocking abuse scandals, some of which dated back decades, with the most notable involving the late BBC television star Jimmy Savile. After his death in 2011, he was revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
The inquiry has published 15 investigations and dozens of other reports, cataloguing details of appalling abuse at institutions including the Catholic Church, the Church of England, and Britain’s political hub in Westminster.
The investigations found the rich and well-connected had been treated differently to those who were poor, with “the prioritisation of reputation over the needs and safety of children”.
“Deference was often shown to people of prominence including councillors, MPs (members of parliament) and leading clergy by those whose job it was to investigate allegations,” Jay said. “Even when they tried to investigate thoroughly, they were often told by their superiors to back off.”
The inquiry heard from 725 witnesses during 325 hearings which began in Feb. 2017, processing nearly 2.5 million pages of evidence. More than 6,000 victims and survivors of abuse also related their experiences to the inquiry’s ‘Truth Project’.
The abuse involved children, babies and toddlers often carried out by someone they knew and trusted, and accompanied by extreme violence and acts of sadism, causing agonising physical pain.
“It is vile and degrading and its consequences are frequently life-long for the victims,” she was quoted as saying.
2019 Crime Survey
Even while it was carrying out its investigations, the scale of online abuse had risen dramatically, the inquiry said.
It made 20 recommendations, with three key measures:
The government said it would respond to the inquiry’s report within six months, and was committed its work “is translated into action”. Lawyers who represented victims involved in the inquiry welcomed its findings, but said the recommendations did not go far enough.
“We will fight to strengthen these proposals as they go through parliament, so that future generations of children can secure the comprehensive protection they need,” Richard Scorer, Head of Abuse Law at Slater & Gordon.
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