This is a bitterly disappointing outcome to the #IICSA public inquiry. After all the years of hearings, for the inquiry to recommend such a limp and inadequate version of mandatory reporting is inexplicable.
https://twitter.com/mandatenow/status/1583045692603629569
The mandatory reporting proposal only addresses situations that rarely occur.
The first is someone actually witnessing an incident of child sexual abuse. It's almost always a private act with no witnesses. So making it mandatory to report this makes almost no difference.
The first is someone actually witnessing an incident of child sexual abuse. It's almost always a private act with no witnesses. So making it mandatory to report this makes almost no difference.
The second is the perpetrator admitting the abuse. Most child abusers (like other criminals) have enough sense of self-preservation not to admit it. So making it mandatory to report this also makes almost no difference.
The third is when the child discloses that they have suffered abuse. This does happen, but there is often along delay. The inquiry has concluded that the delay on average is 26 years.
So prompt disclosures by the victim are also very rare and making it mandatory to report them will again make little difference.
What we need (and other countries have) is mandatory reporting of reasonable grounds for suspicion on the basis other evidence - medical or behavioural indications. IICSA recommends those forms of suspicion remain non-mandatory in effect.
So the one kind of evidence that it would useful to include in mandatory reporting, the one kind of evidence that is commonly available, has been excluded by the Inquiry.
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