A former Catholic school teacher who says she saw priests grooming
students in her classroom has told an inquiry that Victoria's child
protection system is failing victims of clergy sexual assault.
In her statement read to the Protecting Victoria's
Vulnerable Children Inquiry on Tuesday, Pam Krstic said she was ignored
when she raised her concerns.
While the inquiry is not investigating individual cases,
it was told that secrecy within church communities and their "don't talk
about it" attitude as well as society's reluctance to talk about sexual
abuse, were systemic issues that needed to be addressed.
"We believe the church response (to abuse) is shockingly
deficient in preventing and minimising trauma for victims, their
families and communities at a great cost to us all," Ms Krstic said.
She said there was reluctance among police, professionals
and politicians to engage in any public criticism of the Catholic
church's handling of clergy abuse.
Ms Krstic co-founded the Melbourne Victims' Collective
for those affected by abuse after two priests in her St Brigid's Parish
in Healesville were convicted over child sex abuse within a decade.
She said Catholic schools and the church were not subject
to the same legal requirements that applied to others who work with
children, and clergy need to be legislated as mandatory reporters of
child abuse.
"Teachers and clergy who see more vulnerable children on a
daily basis than welfare workers should be required to be supervised
the way those working in the welfare sector are," she said.
Victims' Collective director Helen Last said the Catholic
church withheld information from police and there was no pressure from
government for them to do otherwise.
"An institution like a church is free to do what it wants to do," Ms Last told the inquiry.
"We see that there is a complicity here, a systemic
complicity and we are trying to argue that very strongly because when
you have that amount of material being held by a private organisation or
an institution, that is of great concern to the wider society."
She was critical of the Melbourne Response, a process
adopted by the Catholic church by which victims of clergy abuse can seek
compensation from the church of up to $75,000 rather than go to police.
She said it was problematic because victims usually did
not seek legal advice before signing legal documents which released the
church and the offending priest.
She said the collective had requested the Victorian
government evaluate the need for an independent commission of inquiry
into the process.
"We don't believe it has protected children, the church
has not protected children in the past, it's not protecting them in the
current situation, so therefore we can't have hope for the future
situation," she said.
The inquiry, launched in January, is investigating systemic problems in the state's child protection system.
The panel, chaired by former Supreme Court judge Philip
Cummins, is scheduled to report its recommendations to improve the
system to government in November.
The inquiry was ordered by the government following the
airing of horrific cases of child abuse in various Ombudsman's reports
and critical problems recruiting and retaining child protection workers.