Rights and Obligations: How to Investigate into Past Failures to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings

Recommendations to Institutions

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These recommendations provide the first comprehensive set of criteria for successfully conducting investigations into abuse in institutions. They also offer guidance to victims and survivors when they are speaking out about their experiences of abuse and calling for investigation into this issue. Institutions that take child protection seriously have a duty to investigate the experiences of abuse within their settings and thus to take responsibility for past injustice.

The recommendations include the following areas:

  • What is meant by investigating and addressing child sexual abuse
  • How to realise the right of victims and survivors to investigations into the past
  • How to establish an inquiry team
  • The legal issues which need to be considered
  • The investigation formats which can be used
  • How to work with the media
  • How to publish the report
  • Possible formats for the recognition and acknowledgement of abuse
  • How to improve and strengthen prevention measures and child protection following investigations