Close to 90,000 Australians were sexually abused as a child at a religious organisation

Close to 90,000 Australians — or one in every 250 — were sexually abused as a child at a religious organisation, with the overwhelming bulk of victim-survivors boys.

Close to 90,000 Australians were sexually abused as a child at a religious organisations with the overwhelming bulk of victim-survivors boys, new research shows.

Three-quarters of the reported cases, which have impacted one in every 250 Australians, occurred in Catholic-run organisations and boys were 8 times more likely to be victim-survivors.

The findings, which found child abuse at religious organisations has dramatically declined, are part of an analysis complied by researchers at the Australian Catholic University.

The university’s analysis used data from the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment study which surveyed 8503 Australians aged 16 and above about their experiences of maltreatment in childhood.

Ribbons to remember sexual abuse victim-survivors outside St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral in Ballarat. Picture: Craig Hughes

Key finding include boys experiencing far more sexual abuse than girls, with 0.8 per cent of boys and 0.1 per cent of girls experiencing abuse.

Children were generally aged between 7 and 11 when first sexually abused.

Most people who were abused said it occurred in Catholic organisations (71.9 per cent), followed by other Christian denominations including Anglican, Jehovah’s Witness, and Orthodox (21.8 per cent) and non-Christian religious organisations (5.1 per cent).

The overwhelming majority of abusers were men in positions of power.

The prevalence of child sexual abuse at the hands of leaders or other adults in religious organisations has declined from 2.2 per cent of men aged 65 and older down to 0.2 per cent of men aged 16-24.

Study author Gabrielle Hunt said the data could help inform strategies to protect children.

“We can learn from this data by understanding the heightened risk to boys in religious settings, addressing the role men are playing in harming children, and examining the ways in which toxic ideas about power, sex, and masculinity create harm for children,” she said.

Fellow study author Daryl Higgins said while all child maltreatment was unacceptable, child sexual abuse in religious organisations represented a stark betrayal of the faith families put in such institutions.

“Child sexual abuse by religious perpetrators is a particularly heinous issue as it involves abusing positions of power, betraying children’s trust, and exploiting a tripartite power relationship driven by sexual, organisational and religious power,” Professor Higgins said.

Key finding include boys experiencing far more sexual abuse than girls.

Ms Hunt said while girls are more likely to experience sexual abuse overall, in any institutional setting, boys are more likely.

“Historically, a lot of these institutional settings would have been specifically for boys – run by men and for boys – those kind of boy homes that we learned about during the Royal Commission,” she said.

“So part of it would be just the simple exposure that boys had to institutional perpetrators.

“And then in religious institutions it’s much more common for boys to take on prestigious roles. So things like altar boys, or being in the choir, compared to girls.

“So the access that leaders would have had to boys would have been much easier than it would have been to girls.”

Ms Hunt said there are specific components of the Catholic Church that create greater risk of abuse.

“They have a particularly very closed culture. They have a history around clericalism, which is this idea that men in positions of power are God’s earthly representative, and that creates a culture where they are often left unchecked,” she said.

“That has had a huge impact on the kind of culture of not believing children and young people, but also moving known offenders between parishes, because the priority was always the protection of the reputation of the organisation and of their leadership.”

Ribbons to remember child abuse victims outside St Patricks Cathedral in Ballarat. Picture: Rob Leeson.

Australian Catholic Safeguarding chief executive Dr Ursula Stephens said the organisation acknowledges the “lifelong trauma” of abuse victims and survivors and their families.

“While the harm to victims and survivors can never be undone, the Catholic Church in Australia has learnt, and continues to learn from the grievous failures in its past and today is resolutely committed to providing safe environments for children, adults at risk and all people as its utmost priority,” she said.

Dr Stephens said the Catholic Church has taken “vital steps” to strengthen its commitment to preventing abuse.

“We are backing up the Church’s commitment to safeguarding through a robust safeguarding training program, nationwide safeguarding audits and managing the movement of ministry,” she said.

“A new National Code of Conduct is guiding and strengthening a safeguarding culture in the Church.”