People in Queensland could not miss all the publicity about the Sexual Abuse Royal Commission which has held sessions in Brisbane recently. It has been hard for me, as I raised the issue about the sexual abuse by a teacher at one of the schools, in 1983 with the Anglican Church. It was denied. Indeed nothing was done to see if it was true or not. I never had the proof – something that is often an issue with this sort of abuse. I won’t go into details here of what I did, but some of my family and friends know, and I have letters at home from at least two high profile Anglicans that acknowledge that I had been active in trying to bring justice for the boys who were involved. I do believe that there is more to it.
I as appalled that the headmaster claimed at the Commission that he did not know it was illegal to do these things to the boys!!! I am gobsmacked about that.
Today I read about a Catholic priest who was a friend of our family and attended our home on several occasions for meals/social activities. We know that several days after he attended a family wedding, where he did a reading, he was charged with acts of paedophilia. Apparently the Commission and the publicity has caused more boys to come forward about this man and something he did to them 40 years ago.
Few realise that there other victims of all of this. I am sure there are more men, who were victims as young boys, but there are other victims. The parents, the siblings of the victims. Right now I am feeling somewhat fragile and have shed many tears over the last few weeks, as I have over the 30 or so years since I discovered the issue at the school. At the time, I was a good Anglican, but after getting no help from the many people I sought support from during that period, I no long consider myself an Anglican, and can hardly call myself a Christian now.
I was interested to read the article by Kylie Lang in the Sunday Mail, (November 15th, 2015) where she reports on the different standards between boys and girls. This is something that I have spoken of on many occasions. Young men are encouraged to explore their sexuality. A father is often very proud of his young son when he learns of his first conquests, but the girl who is the one who has sex with that boy is vilified. We have a word “slut” which is often attributed to the girl, and she can be continually vilified.
Not only that, many girls become pregnant – and end up having to deal with a range of challenges as a result. Often the boy gets away scot free. The women bear the insults and the massive changes as a result of it all.
I could go on and on, in the way that women are discriminated against. I look at the terrorists in Paris right now. Men are the ones that perpetrated this horrible crime!!!!
