A woman checks on her granddaughter at night to find the 13-year-old has been joined in bed by her stepfather. Horrified, the grandmother’s pleas to child protective services are brushed aside and when the case is closed she is labelled vexatious. Four months later, the young rape victim gives birth.
In another case, a Family Court judge allows a man supervised weekend visits with his 11-year-old daughter after being convicted of abusing her and two cousins; the benefit of a “loving relationship” outweighs the risk she will be abused again. A separate judge orders the installation of locks on bathroom and bedroom doors to protect two daughters from their father; the girls wished for no contact as he had raped them.
These are among the Australian examples Professor S. Caroline Taylor carries with her after 20 years advocating for survivors of child sexual abuse and intrafamilial rape. Taylor is more than a “repository of other people’s atrocities”, as she once described it; she is an academic who has helped inform how authorities in Australia and internationally respond to a crime “we never seem to be able to address”.
A survivor herself, Taylor is among the co-founders of the Brave Movement, dedicated to ending childhood sexual violence. She has been invited to the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, to be held in Bogota, Colombia this week.
She will speak about the “obscenely low” prosecution and conviction rates for “the most catastrophic” crime against children and argue no meaningful change can be accomplished without addressing abuse at home.
Part of an expert advisory panel to the federal attorney-general’s inquiry into sexual violence, Taylor has been “respectfully at loggerheads” with members of the legal community over the lack of attention paid to intrafamilial abuse.
Source: ‘Most unsafe place for a child is home’: Australian advocate’s shocking message for the world