The abuse of children by priests and church workers often begins between the ages of six and 10, and generally only stops when victims take action to stop it or avoid it, a new study has found.
The report, They Didn't Believe Me: Adult Survivors' Perspectives of Child Sexual Abuse by Personnel in Christian Institutions, is the first Australian research drawing on church abuse victims' experiences that doesn't rely on church data.
The majority of the 81 participants reported that they had been abused repeatedly, often over several years, and that they were ''re-victimised'' by the church and the criminal justice system when they reported the abuse.
Forty-four per cent of participants said their abuse began between age six and 10, with more than half of the women participants falling into this category.
Forty-eight per cent of male participants said they were abused between 11 and 13.
''I think it would be both a surprise and a shock to the public to learn that those who have experienced and survived abuse did so at such a young age,'' the author of the report, Dr Jodi Death from Queensland University of Technology, said.
Another key finding was that for the majority of participants, the abuse did not stop because of the intervention of a parent but because they had avoided or escaped the perpetrator.
''I refused to be home Friday afternoon to Saturday night from 14 years … would sleep over at friend's places and dropped all classes he taught,'' one participant said.
Another said: ''I made it aware to him that I now understood what was happening to me and was not going to allow it to continue by calling out to my elder brother when he came into my bedroom.''
The report found that when victims had reported what had happened to them, often after many years, it was primarily to protect others from the perpetrator and make the Christian institution accountable to an external agency.
However, they were often more traumatised by the dismissive reaction they received or the experience of the criminal justice system.
Fifty-two per cent of those who reported the abuse said they were ''very dissatisfied'' with the help offered by the Christian institution to whom they reported the abuse, with 56 per cent indicating they were ''very dissatisfied'' with the truthfulness of the organisation's response.
