Never again: can the royal commission help make our children safe?

When the inquiry into historical child sexual abuse delivers its final report next week, experts hope it will offer some lessons for the future too

In the Parramatta Girls Home, a state-controlled institution for neglected girls in New South Wales, children were stripped of their identity and silenced. Their heads were shorn, they were assigned derogatory names, and personal items including sanitary napkins were confiscated. Little girls were deprived of food, forced into harsh labour, and were physically abused, sexually assaulted and raped.

The most “difficult” girls were sent to the Hay Institution for Girls, a maximum-security facility attached to the home where a military-style of discipline was enforced. There the children were made to march, their eyes on the ground. . They lived an alternative moral universe where a twisted regime reigned supreme. The girls were barred from talking to each other or from standing within 10 metres of one another. Girls were drugged. They were forced to undergo invasive and unnecessary medical checks. They were deprived of the toilet and assaulted for wetting the bed.

The culture that exists within organisations is one of the most significant contributors to abuse occurring

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These children are not asking for holidays to Disneyland … they’re asking for respect

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from Children | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2kC3uwz