Major inquiry into UK child sex abuse opens

Major inquiry into UK child sex abuse opens

PanARMENIAN.Net - England's mammoth inquiry into historical child sex abuse was told of the "torture, rape and slavery" suffered by child migrants shipped to Australia, at its first public hearings on Monday, February 27, AFP reports.

The wide-ranging Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse opened by looking at the schemes that sent thousands of vulnerable children to far-flung parts of the Commonwealth in the decades after World War II.

David Hill broke down as he told the inquiry of the "endemic" sexual abuse at the school he was sent to in Australia.

"I hope this inquiry can promote an understanding of the long-term consequences and suffering of those who were sexually abused," he said.

"Many never recover and are permanently afflicted with guilt, shame, diminished self-confidence, low self-esteem, fear and trauma."

British Prime Minister Theresa May set up the inquiry in 2014 when she was interior minister.

The British Empire sent some 150,000 children abroad over 350 years, according to a 1998 parliamentary study, although the probe started Monday by looking at use of the practice after World War II.

It was justified as a means of slashing the costs of caring for lone children and providing disadvantaged young people with a fresh start, while meeting labour shortages in the Commonwealth and populating colonial-era lands with white British settlers.

Between 1945 and 1970, youngsters were sent mainly to Australia, but also Canada, New Zealand and what is now Zimbabwe -- often without the consent of their families.

But the promise of a good upbringing and an exciting new life in the sun was often, in reality, a world of forced labour, brutal treatment and sexual assault in remote institutions run by churches and charities.

"They sent us to a place that was a living hell," victim Clifford Walsh told the BBC.

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