Media Release
22.07.2024
URGENT ACTION NEEDED – THIS IS A NATIONAL CHILD SAFETY CRISIS
The Carly Ryan Foundation is outraged at the state of the court system in relation to child sexual abuse.
Andrew Carpenter from Websters Lawyers shared the statistics of Child Sexual Abuse cases in the District Court of South Australia.
The numbers are staggering, at an average of 28% of cases each day involving sexually based crimes against children.
There are far more cases that go unanswered, as the victim must be strong and stable enough mentally to withstand cross examination and the repeated re-traumatisation of having to relive their abuse.
This means around 99% of Child Sexual Abuse disclosures never make it to court with the actual conviction rate being 0.003 per 1000 disclosures.
Ethically and morally we cannot stand by and continue to watch our children suffer, while the perpetrators are not held to account criminally.
It is time to bring to light the fact that our criminal courts are a legal system and not a justice system.
Consider working with children checks as an example of how dangerous this is to children – how many potential offenders are able to continue working with children and young people because there are no criminal findings against them?
Perpetrators are then free to move state to state and job to job, potentially putting hundreds if not thousands more children at risk.
The Foundation asks for an investigation into the possibility of a solution being found through implementation of a Commonwealth Children’s Act, so that the Federal Government is empowered to legislate nationally for child abuse cases and the protection of children.
Secondly, we ask for a complete system overhaul of how crimes against children are moved through our courts.
We need a Federal inquisitorial system to investigate each case, rather than the current State adversarial system which effectively puts the victim on trial while the accused is not required to answer to any of their horrendous acts.
Another area of concern is with sentencing. For those few cases that do reach court, and meet the burden of proof to garner conviction – sentencing is absurdly inadequate.
With the rise in child sexual abuse, online child exploitation, cyber-crimes, terror related crimes and other offences that cross State boundaries, the call for an effective Federal Criminal Court for cases involving children is overdue.
We need to understand that in cases such as child sexual abuse, a child has not only suffered physically but has also been psychologically impacted – often detrimentally for life.
The evidence is overwhelming that children do not lie about these types of disclosures and must be believed. We are calling on our political Leaders, our South Australian Premier, Prime Minister and Attorney General to investigate this atrocity and take action NOW.
For further information on the Carly Ryan Foundation visit: https://www.carlyryanfoundation.com/