At our annu­al con­fer­ence on 26 Novem­ber 2017, 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. That pol­i­cy can be accessed here.
In March, ECAJ Pres­i­dent Anton Block announced the for­ma­tion of a nation­al work­ing group “to deter­mine what action the ECAJ, its con­stituent and affil­i­ate bod­ies and oth­er Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions should take in the wake of the recent Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child sex­u­al abuse”.
Now, the ECAJ’s Nation­al Work­ing Group has rec­om­mend­ed that the ECAJ do three things:

• Once the Nation­al Redress Scheme leg­is­la­tion is passed, issue to Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions around the coun­try which work with chil­dren a ‘Brief­ing Note and Request for Response’ address­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Nation­al Redress Scheme, their state of com­pli­ance with child pro­tec­tion laws, their com­pli­ance with the spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tion of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion relat­ing to Jew­ish insti­tu­tions and the issu­ing of an apol­o­gy for past wrongs.

• Arrange a pan­el of gov­ern­ment and oth­er expert lat­er in the year to bring these issues for­ward for the Jew­ish community’s knowl­edge and on-going com­mu­ni­ty edu­ca­tion.

• Offer to work with each of the three Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions which were specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied in the Roy­al Commission’s report for their his­toric fail­ings in rela­tion to child pro­tec­tion, in con­sul­ta­tion with sur­vivors, as they con­sid­er all appro­pri­ate action to right past wrongs, includ­ing their deci­sion whether to join the Nation­al Redress Scheme and issue a pub­lic apol­o­gy.”

Q&A

The fol­low­ing is a ques­tion and answer about the ECA­J’s posi­tion on the Nation­al Redress Scheme for Sur­vivors of Child Sex­u­al Abuse, updates from the ECA­J’s Nation­al Work­ing Group, and our response to oth­er devel­op­ments since the Roy­al Com­mis­sion’s final report was released:
1. What is ECAJ’s posi­tion on the Nation­al Redress Scheme for Sur­vivors of Child Sex­u­al Abuse com­ing into effect in all Aus­tralian states on July 1, 2018, and most of the Roy­al Commission’s 122 rec­om­men­da­tions being adopt­ed by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment?
The ECAJ and all of its con­stituent organ­i­sa­tions wel­comed the Final Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child Sex­u­al Abuse released on 15 Decem­ber 2017. The ECAJ has long recog­nised that the Inquiry, its pub­lic hear­ings, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions have been of sem­i­nal ongo­ing impor­tance for the whole of Aus­tralian soci­ety. The ECAJ called on all Aus­tralians and insti­tu­tions to take notice of the rec­om­men­da­tions in the Final Report, and ful­ly sup­ports the adop­tion by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment of the 122 rec­om­men­da­tions in the Final Report. It has called upon all Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions to pay spe­cial regard to rec­om­men­da­tion 16.30, and base all their prac­tices of child pro­tec­tion on the explic­it recog­ni­tion that halachic con­cepts of mesir­ah, moser and loshen hora do not apply to the oblig­a­tion to com­mu­ni­cate and report alle­ga­tions of child sex­u­al abuse, which must be made to the police and the civ­il author­i­ties.
In addi­tion, the ECAJ and its con­stituent organ­i­sa­tions have strong­ly wel­comed and ful­ly sup­port the Aus­tralian Government’s Nation­al Redress Scheme for peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced insti­tu­tion­al child sex­u­al abuse and its sig­nif­i­cant and major objec­tive to insti­tute a sys­tem of redress. The ECAJ has estab­lished a Nation­al Work­ing Group to work with all rel­e­vant organ­i­sa­tions in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty to deter­mine what action the ECAJ, its con­stituent and affil­i­ate bod­ies and oth­er Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions should take in the wake of the final Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child sex­u­al abuse and the announce­ment of the Nation­al Redress scheme. We have liaised with the Jew­ish sur­vivor group, Tzedek.
2. Please pro­vide a brief update sum­ma­ry of devel­op­ments, and any actions tak­en so far, by ECAJ’s Nation­al Work­ing Group, formed to deter­mine what action the ECAJ, its con­stituent and affil­i­ate bod­ies and oth­er Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions should take in the wake of the recent Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child sex­u­al abuse.
In recent years, the ECAJ, the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of Vic­to­ria, the NSW Jew­ish Board of Deputies and Rab­bi Mendel Kas­tel of Jew­ish House have done much good work to address the sys­temic fail­ings that were high­light­ed in the Roy­al Com­mis­sion hear­ings. This has includ­ed work­shops and train­ing sem­i­nars for both deci­sion mak­ers and staff, and accred­i­ta­tion with recog­nised gov­ern­ment agen­cies for poli­cies and prac­tices. Noth­ing short of pro­tec­tion at all times for chil­dren in the care of Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions is accept­able. Improve­ments in poli­cies and prac­tices have begun to bring about changes in atti­tudes and cul­ture so as to ensure that any infor­ma­tion about a pos­si­ble inci­dent of abuse is report­ed to the author­i­ties imme­di­ate­ly, and that there is total com­mu­ni­ty and organ­i­sa­tion­al back­ing for vic­tims, their fam­i­lies and sup­port­ers. The ECAJ com­mends Jew­ish Care Vic­to­ria for its deci­sive lead­er­ship in join­ing the Nation­al Redress Scheme.
The ECAJ through its Nation­al Work­ing Group, mind­ful that the leg­is­la­tion estab­lish­ing the scheme is still before the Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment, is final­is­ing a “Brief­ing Note and Request for Response” to be sent by the ECAJ to Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions around the coun­try which work with chil­dren. The “Brief­ing Note and Request for Response” will be sent as soon as the cur­rent Bill is passed by Par­lia­ment. The issues we are work­ing on for the “Brief­ing Note and Request for Response” include:

• Encour­ag­ing each such organ­i­sa­tion to par­tic­i­pate in the Nation­al Redress Scheme to deal with any his­toric claims of child sex­u­al abuse that are made against it. This is of spe­cial rel­e­vance to the Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions iden­ti­fied in the Roy­al Commission’s hear­ings, inves­ti­ga­tions and final Report.

• Seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion from the organ­i­sa­tion that it has in place clear and ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed and under­stood child pro­tec­tion poli­cies and process­es for imple­men­ta­tion, which com­ply with legal and reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards, includ­ing a process for con­duct­ing reg­u­lar exter­nal, inde­pen­dent com­pli­ance audits; and in par­tic­u­lar pro­vid­ing sup­port and coun­selling for vic­tims of abuse and their fam­i­lies. In addi­tion, rel­e­vant peak bod­ies in the States and Ter­ri­to­ries will be request­ed to pro­vide ongo­ing edu­ca­tion, work­shops and train­ing for staff, paid and vol­un­teer, in organ­i­sa­tions which work with chil­dren, and to build on the excel­lent work already under­tak­en and to ensure that on an ongo­ing basis those work­ing with chil­dren are kept apprised of their legal respon­si­bil­i­ties and ways to meet them.

• Seek­ing spe­cif­ic con­fir­ma­tion from the organ­i­sa­tion that its “com­plaint han­dling poli­cies explic­it­ly state that the halachic (Jew­ish reli­gious law) 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”, as rec­om­mend­ed by the Roy­al Com­mis­sion in its final report.

• In the case of Yeshiv­ah Mel­bourne, Adass Israel School Inc, and Yeshi­va Syd­ney, call on each organ­i­sa­tion to pub­lish an apol­o­gy to sur­vivors for fail­ing to pro­tect them from abuse, fail­ing to act on com­plaints of abuse, and oth­er mat­ters that have emerged from the Roy­al Com­mis­sion hear­ings and oth­er legal pro­ceed­ings. The ECAJ notes with con­cern that each of these three Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions, which were specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied in the Roy­al Commission’s report for their his­toric fail­ings in rela­tion to child pro­tec­tion, are not affil­i­at­ed with the NSW Jew­ish Board of Deputies or the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of Vic­to­ria and, as such, do not have any for­mal links with the ECAJ. Despite this, we offer our full sup­port to these organ­i­sa­tions in con­sul­ta­tion with sur­vivors as they con­sid­er all appro­pri­ate action to right past wrongs, includ­ing their deci­sion whether to join the Nation­al Redress Scheme.

3. Does ECAJ’s Nation­al Work­ing Group hope, and expect, that all Jew­ish com­mu­nal organ­i­sa­tions involved in the care or super­vi­sion of chil­dren sign up to the Nation­al Redress Scheme? And so far, have as many of these organ­i­sa­tions com­mit­ted to join­ing the scheme as ECAJ would have hoped for by this stage, with the Nation­al Redress Scheme com­menc­ing on July 1, 2018?
The ECAJ has wel­comed the Nation­al Redress scheme, and has attend­ed gov­ern­ment brief­in­gs about the redress scheme and has now writ­ten to key offi­cials in the DSS ask­ing for an offi­cial out­line of the respon­si­bil­i­ties of a lone Non-Gov­ern­ment Insti­tu­tion (NGI) which sub­scribes to the Nation­al Redress Scheme.
It must be recog­nised that the Nation­al Redress Scheme Bill and Rules are com­plex instru­ments. The major Church­es, for exam­ple, each engaged teams of lawyers to advise them about whether to opt into the scheme before doing so. For an NGI con­sid­er­ing whether to opt in to the Scheme as a lone insti­tu­tion, some offi­cial guid­ance would be use­ful, before it seeks legal advice. It would be espe­cial­ly use­ful for the ECAJ in call­ing on rel­e­vant insti­tu­tions in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the Scheme.
The ECAJ will active­ly encour­age all rel­e­vant Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions to opt into the Scheme, sub­ject to their own legal advice, and will seek the pro­vi­sion of infor­ma­tion from the gov­ern­ment to facil­i­tate their opt­ing in. The ECAJ, while a roof body, exer­cis­es no con­trol over oth­er organ­i­sa­tions, or over mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Its role is coor­di­na­tion by con­sen­sus and it usu­al­ly arrives at posi­tions as a result of input from its con­stituent and affil­i­ate organ­i­sa­tions and the organ­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ties they rep­re­sent, some 200 Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions across Aus­tralia. It is on this basis that the ECAJ offers the com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship and advice which is gen­er­al­ly fol­lowed.
4. Does ECAJ wel­come Prime Min­is­ter Mal­colm Turn­bul­l’s announce­ment of a Nation­al Apol­o­gy to sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse to be held on Octo­ber 22 this year?
The ECAJ strong­ly wel­comes Prime Min­is­ter Mal­colm Turn­bul­l’s announce­ment of a Nation­al Apol­o­gy to sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse. It would be expect­ed that rel­e­vant Jew­ish insti­tu­tions will have pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished their apol­o­gy to sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse and the Jew­ish peak bod­ies will endorse the Prime Minister’s offi­cial apol­o­gy.
Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion
Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor Bet­ti­na Cass, as Chair of the ECAJ Nation­al Work­ing Group, met with the NSW Depart­ment of Pre­mier and Cabinet’s Task Force estab­lished to respond to the Final Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion into Insti­tu­tion­al Respons­es to Child Sex­u­al Abuse. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Depart­ment of Pre­mier and Cab­i­net, Depart­ment of Jus­tice, Depart­ment of Fam­i­lies and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices and the NSW Children’s Guardian were at the meet­ing and updat­ed her about the NSW Government’s approach to respond­ing to the Final Report of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion and the details of the Nation­al Redress Scheme. Pro­fes­sor Cass informed the meet­ing about the ongo­ing work and future plans for child pro­tec­tion being under­tak­en by the NSW Jew­ish Board of Deputies Task Force on Child Pro­tec­tion and the ECAJ Nation­al Work­ing Group estab­lished to devel­op a nation-wide response in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Roy­al Com­mis­sion. The meet­ing was extreme­ly pos­i­tive and dis­cus­sion ensued about arrang­ing a Pan­el of gov­ern­ment and oth­er experts lat­er in the year to assist the Jew­ish community’s knowl­edge about the Nation­al Redress Scheme, and relat­ed issues, and for on-going com­mu­ni­ty edu­ca­tion.