Salvation Army failed to protect boys from abuse for decades, report says
Source: Guardian
Salvation Army failed to protect boys from abuse for decades, report says
Royal commission found a ‘culture of frequent physical punishment’ which was sometimes brutal and accompanied by sexual abuse
Helen Davidson @heldavidson
Tuesday 17 March 2015 02.09 EDT
The Salvation Army failed to protect young boys from sexual, physical and psychological abuse by officers and employees in four of its homes over decades, the royal commission has found.
The findings in a report released on Tuesday follow public hearings into abuse at four Salvation Army boys’ homes in NSW and Queensland from 1956 until their closure. Documentary evidence from the homes at Indooroopilly, Gill, Riverview and Bexley suggested the abuse stretched back to the 1940s.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse examined how the Salvation Army responded to allegations and evidence it received of child abuse – sexual and otherwise – by officers and staff, including five named Salvation Army officers, and other resident boys.
The Salvation Army had earlier revealed that 115 of 157 complaints received by January 2014 related to sexual abuse of former residents of these four boys’ homes. The report found there was a “culture of frequent physical punishment” which was on occasion brutal and accompanied by sexual abuse. Much went unreported by the victims out of fear. In most cases when boys did report sexual abuse to a manager or officer they were punished, accused of lying or ignored.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/17/salvation-army-failed-to-protect-boys-from-abuse-for-decades-report-says
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