Please find below the ECA­J’s media release regard­ing the Final Report by Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child Sex­u­al Abuse. To down­load this media release in a PDF for­mat, click here.

MEDIA STATEMENT

18 Decem­ber 2017

The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry has wel­comed the Final Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child Sex­u­al Abuse which was released on Decem­ber 15.
“The Inquiry, its pub­lic hear­ings, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions have been of sem­i­nal ongo­ing impor­tance for the whole of Aus­tralian soci­ety”, said ECAJ Pres­i­dent Anton Block.
“All Aus­tralians must take notice of the 189 rec­om­men­da­tions made in the final Report. Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty insti­tu­tions will need to pay spe­cial regard to rec­om­men­da­tion 16.30, which calls on them to ensure that their com­plaint han­dling poli­cies explic­it­ly state that the halachic con­cepts of mesir­ah, moser and loshon horo do not apply to the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and report­ing of alle­ga­tions of child sex­u­al abuse to police and oth­er civ­il author­i­ties”.
At its annu­al con­fer­ence on Novem­ber 26, the ECAJ adopt­ed a detailed pol­i­cy con­cern­ing Child Sex­u­al Abuse, with the back­ing of the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of Vic­to­ria and the NSW Jew­ish Board of Deputies Task Force on Child Pro­tec­tion. The pol­i­cy:

“RECOGNISES that child sex­u­al abuse has occurred with­in some Jew­ish insti­tu­tions;

RECOGNISES fur­ther that in some instances indi­vid­u­als in posi­tions of lead­er­ship and trust with­in those insti­tu­tions failed to report the abuse to the appro­pri­ate author­i­ties and in doing so, act­ed unlaw­ful­ly and uneth­i­cal­ly, and failed the chil­dren who had suf­fered the abuse and exac­er­bat­ed their suf­fer­ing, and brought shame to our com­mu­ni­ty;

NOTES the halachic rule that the civ­il law of the land is bind­ing (dina d’malkhuta dina) and sup­ports ful­ly the state­ments by Jew­ish reli­gious and rep­re­sen­ta­tive rab­bini­cal bod­ies that “there is a reli­gious oblig­a­tion to inform the rel­e­vant author­i­ties of all infor­ma­tion known con­cern­ing pos­si­ble harm­ful crim­i­nal con­duct, espe­cial­ly con­duct as seri­ous as child sex­u­al abuse, and to co-oper­ate with the author­i­ties in every way to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice”;

AFFIRMS that the prin­ci­ple of mesir­ah, which pre­cludes the report­ing of fel­low Jews to the sec­u­lar author­i­ties, was his­tor­i­cal­ly applied in places where Jews were sub­ject­ed to insti­tu­tion­al per­se­cu­tion and racism and could not receive just treat­ment by the civ­il author­i­ties, and has no rel­e­vance or admis­si­bil­i­ty what­so­ev­er in Aus­tralia, as has been stat­ed by mul­ti­ple Aus­tralian rab­bini­cal sources;

CONDEMNS any con­ceal­ment of, or fail­ure to report, alle­ga­tions of child sex­u­al abuse and any instances of intim­i­da­tion or ret­ri­bu­tion against chil­dren who have suf­fered sex­u­al abuse or their fam­i­lies or oth­er sup­port­ers, not­ing that all such con­duct is unlaw­ful, dis­grace­ful and con­trary to Jew­ish ethics and law, and serves to deep­en the suf­fer­ing of sur­vivors and their fam­i­lies;

AFFIRMS the imper­a­tive of pro­tect­ing chil­dren from harm, which is a core Jew­ish val­ue, and calls on all organ­i­sa­tions in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty to adopt and active­ly imple­ment a pol­i­cy of zero tol­er­ance towards child sex­u­al abuse, and to pro­mote clear lead­er­ship and trans­par­ent gov­er­nance to com­bat the secre­cy on which abuse thrives; and

CALLS ON Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions which have the care of chil­dren to adopt and imple­ment appro­pri­ate stan­dards of child pro­tec­tion if they have not already done so, and to work togeth­er with oth­er Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions under the aus­pices of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty State roof bod­ies and the ECAJ to devel­op a best prac­tice mod­el of Jew­ish Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards on Child Pro­tec­tion.”

Mr Block added, “I want to empha­sise, espe­cial­ly in light of the Roy­al Commission’s final report, that the ECAJ calls on Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions which at any time have the care of chil­dren to adopt and imple­ment appro­pri­ate stan­dards of child pro­tec­tion if they have not already done so, and to work togeth­er with oth­er Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing Tzedek, under the aus­pices of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty State roof bod­ies and the ECAJ to devel­op a best prac­tice mod­el of Jew­ish Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards on Child Pro­tec­tion. Lead­ers of Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions must take a pre­ven­ta­tive, proac­tive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry approach to child safe­ty issues, so that the safe­ty and well­be­ing of chil­dren in each of their organ­i­sa­tions is a para­mount con­sid­er­a­tion when devel­op­ing activ­i­ties, poli­cies and man­age­ment prac­tices”.
“It is not enough to express our deep­est sym­pa­thy with all sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse and pro­found sor­row at the pain and ongo­ing hard­ship they have suf­fered, and to extend the same sen­ti­ments to the fam­i­ly and friends of sur­vivors who have suf­fered in any way for sup­port­ing them. Our insti­tu­tions must be proac­tive and vig­i­lant to pre­vent any fur­ther instances of abuse occur­ring with­in them, and we need to extend what­ev­er sup­port may be nec­es­sary to sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse in their pur­suit of jus­tice and redress.”
Con­tact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au