Children and young people who have been sexually abused sometimes disclose that abuse soon after the event or events occurred, or at least later during childhood. However, many children and young people do not tell anyone about the abuse until decades later, long after they reach adulthood. An unknown number, the ‘dark figure’, never tell...

Child sexual abuse is difficult to prosecute and has one of the highest attrition rates of all criminal offences. Part of the difficulty in prosecuting these cases is that offending is often hidden from public view, leaving only the complainants’ evidence to establish the defendants’ guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The ability of child sexual abuse...

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (the Royal Commission) contracted researchers from the Gendered Violence Research Network (GVRN) at UNSW Australia to provide a literature review on the support needs of specific population groups affected by institutional child sexual abuse. Two core questions were agreed with the Royal Commission to comprehensively...

This report has been prepared by Carolyn Adams (Macquarie University) and Krista Lee-Jones for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It aims to identify aspects of information sharing frameworks that: facilitate appropriate and timely information sharing between institutions and across jurisdictions to identify, prevent and respond to child sexual abuse in...

This report forms part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s research program in relation to criminal justice system’s response to child sexual abuse in institutional contexts. This study investigated the extent to which joint trials with cross-admissible tendency evidence infringed defendants’ rights, and the extent to which joint trials posed...