Page 62 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 16 February 1993
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While many people have lamented the fact that this is a phenomenon of the decadent late twentieth century, incest phone-ins have shown women in their eighties finally admitting to a violation against them that may have taken place 75 years before. The crime is not new but, as we now consider ourselves to be a more equal society where no-one is considered to be the property of another person, we can hope that the silence that has followed allegations by children will be broken. The nineteenth century notion that children are unable to clearly tell the truth about incidents that happened to them must be shattered, and considerable research exists to support this view. Experts in the field of child abuse in Canberra say that the probability of a child lying is about the same as for an adult. However, children cannot keep up pretences. They do not have the mechanisms or strategies to sustain a pretence. As well, the development of criteria-based statement validity analysis in Australia - a technique used in Germany for many years and now being used in the United States - gives objective criteria on which to validate a child's disclosure of sexual abuse or assault.
Other aspects of children's evidence will now need to be addressed by courts. Research shows that a child can have an 80 per cent recall of incidents and may recall 100 per cent of particular incidents after making an initial statement. Often children's statements can come in parts, as they assess the reactions of the adults in their immediate circle and feel comfortable about releasing further information. The fact that this information does not come forward in an ordered manner, as has been called for in the past, does not mean that the child is confusing reality with fantasy; it is just a function of the way children relate their experiences. Research has shown that this happens frequently and that this does not affect the validity of the data.
What will be needed in conjunction with this legislative change is more emphasis on public education, so that this move is welcomed as a positive initiative towards the development of an open and honest society. Perpetrators can no longer assume that they will be able to evade prosecution because their victim was under 14 years of age and could not give uncorroborated evidence. I call on the Government to make a concerted effort to ensure that this legislative change gets a good airing in the media, and that all groups who are involved with victims, perpetrators and their families are given detailed information as soon as possible. I also hope that the Housing and Community Services Bureau is working on new proposals for the next budget for expanded counselling services for victims, to help them understand the court process, and to support them through the years subsequent to their cases going through the court system, whether a prosecution is successful or not.
This change in legislation may prompt more people to pursue convictions. I certainly expect that the police will take advantage of the changes to bring more perpetrators before the courts. This may cause some concern that innocent people will be brought before the court and possibly convicted unfairly. Research again indicates that this will not be the case. However, I suggest that it would be useful for the Government agencies involved in sexual abuse and assault of young children to monitor the effects brought about by these changes.
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