Sexual assault survivor and activist Tracy Phillips speaks out about the trauma and long-term effects of child abuse

Sunshine Coast woman Tracy Phillips has spoken about the years of abuse and sexual violence she suffered at the hands of her father and the plan to reform child abuse policies in Australia.

Sunshine Coast woman Tracy Phillips is speaking out about the abuse she suffered as a child in the hopes of raising awareness and reform to child sexual abuse policies. Picture: Patrick Woods

A Sunshine Coast woman has spoken out about the “excruciating” sexual violence she was subjected to as a child and the long-term consequences which have plagued her since.

Tracy Phillips, 58, said she was sexually, physically and psychologically abused by her father from when she was a toddler into her teenage years.

Now a retired social worker, successful author, property investor, mother, grandmother and fierce activist, Ms Phillips is campaigning to reform the way Australia tackled child sexual abuse.

“I am the survivor of one of the most not talked about crimes, a crime happening as we speak,” she said.

“But the image I portray is also a facade hiding the pain and injustices I have lived my whole life.”

Ms Phillips – who asked not to name her father – was four when the injustices first began.

Doctors disregarded the red flags of child sexual abuse she was exhibiting.

Tracy said as a child, dancing was her only “escape” until her father also took that away from her.

Teachers ignored her disclosures and physical symptoms and police officers failed to investigate her reports.

“At the age of 6, I had already endured years of molestation and psychological abuse from my father,” she said.

“This was the year of the historic moon landing, an event that would continually rip open a vault of painful memories for the rest of my life.

“To me, it is always a sordid reminder of the day I suffered excruciating pain from the sexual violence I had received the night before.”

Ms Phillips, who grew up near Perth in WA, told her school’s headmaster her father had taken homework from her because she “didn’t want to do things that hurt her fanny”.

She was eight.

Tracy Phillips as a young girl.

Her disclosure was never investigated.

When she was just 12, she contracted a sexually transmitted disease from her father.

“At 13, when I was about to begin high school, I knew I could potentially get pregnant so I found every way I knew how not to be in my father’s presence,” she said.

When her father then became her school’s bus driver and she was abused by him on the bus, she reported it to a senior member of school staff.

But nothing came of it.

Sunshine Coast woman Tracy Phillips took her abuser to court in 2019.

Police investigated Ms Phillip’s father after she made a report in 1999, and he was charged.

However the case was dismissed when the Director of Public Prosecutions in WA deemed there was insufficient evidence and “no reasonable prospect of conviction.”

Ms Phillips who now lives in Mountain Creek finally took her abuser to court in 2019.

Childhood eye witnesses of her abuse came forward at a 35-year school reunion just four years earlier.

But again she was let down.

“At the 11th hour of the court hearing, the perpetrator died and my chance for justice was lost forever,” she said.

Sunshine Coast woman Tracy Phillips is speaking out about the abuse she suffered as a child in the hopes of raising awareness and reform to child abuse policies in Australia. Picture: Patrick Woods

Figures from the 2016 Personal Safety Survey show one in 30 people had experienced sexual abuse by a family member by the age of 15.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found victims took on average 24 years to speak out against their perpetrators.

Ms Phillips said despite the prevalence, child sexual abuse, particularly in domestic settings, was still a taboo issue.

“It remains in the hushed, shadowy corners behind other issues such as domestic violence, substance abuse or mental health, but is never specifically recognised, much less mentioned, and yet can be one of the biggest contributing factors to the others,” she said.

Ms Phillips said she suffered lasting effects from her abuse, including distrust, relationship problems, self-harm, severe depression, anorexia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said the consequences of her abuse were perpetuated by the injustice of the system and the blind eye society turns towards the issue.

Ms Phillips received $15,000 worth of victims of crime compensation from the Western Australian government in 2020.

“This payment was both a vindication of the crimes against me but also an insult, given the paltry amount for all the pain and suffering I had endured from both the perpetrator, but more importantly the system which had treated me so appallingly,” she said.

To mark National Child Protection Week this month, Ms Phillips called for a complete overhaul of the way Australia tackles the issue of child sexual abuse.

She has started a campaign called What About Us? which has already received more than 1600 signatures.

She said it was time to bring the topic into the mainstream and has compiled a plan to reform prevention, education, reporting and support services for victims.