Rita Shackel

Understanding Children’s Medium for Disclosing Sexual Abuse - A Tool for Overcoming Potential Misconceptions in the Courtroom

Complainants in child sexual assault trials are often questioned by the defence about disclosure of the alleged abuse. The defence will often ask the child how they disclosed the alleged sexual abuse, including to whom the initial disclosure was made. Such questions are legitimate and directed towards testing the complainants allegations. Sometimes, such questions are used to impeach the complainants credibility. It is not uncommon in such instances for the defence to suggest that certain modes of disclosure are more consistent with having been sexually victimized and that a complainant who has disclosed otherwise is more likely to have fabricated the allegations of abuse. This article reviews the findings of empirical research on whom victims of child sexual abuse most commonly disclose their abuse to and by what means such disclosure is commonly made. This understanding is important to challenge misconceived views about how victims disclose child sexual abuse.

The beliefs commonly held by adults about children's behavioral responses to sexual victimization.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485 The type of empirical studies reviewed in this article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486 Empirical studies that have examined jurors’ beliefs about the behavior of sexually abused children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486 Empirical studies that have examined lay people’s beliefs about the behavior of sexually abused children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488 Lay people’s beliefs about how children disclose sexual abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 Beliefs about the medium of disclosure of child sexual abuse and retraction of allegations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 Adult expectations of the victim’s response to the perpetrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 Adult beliefs concerning physical, emotional and behavioral indicators of child sexual abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Empirical studies that have examined the beliefs and knowledge of professionals regarding the behavior of sexually abused children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Child sexual abuse experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Medical and health professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492 Law related professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Conclusions and implications of the findings of empirical research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Regulation of legal services in the e-world: a need to short circuit hot spots in ethics and novel practices?

This paper examines the professional and regulatory implications for legal practices of a rapidly evolving legal services marketplace shaped by new technologies and e-spaces. The paper focuses on three burgeoning areas in the delivery of legal services: (i) legal outsourcing; (ii) virtual law firms; and (iii) use of social media networking. The authors examine how Australian legal practitioners are utilising these new practices and technologies and the ethical implications of their use. The paper argues that the current regulatory framework in Australia does not adequately address the challenges and concerns raised by an increasingly borderless and e-based legal services market and thus calls for Australian legal regulators to remedy this deficiency as a matter of priority.

Making Clients Out of Citizens: Deconstructing Women’s Empowerment and Humanitarianism in Post-Conflict Interventions

Post-conflict interventions are dominated by legal, security and development discourses. There is an emerging standardised ‘set’ of international responses to conflict. Many high-status interventions deal primarily with elites from within conflict communities and seek to rebuild on a western neoliberal democratic model with little accommodation of local practices or involvement of those most adversely impacted by the conflict. This model often reinforces pre-existing structural inequalities and further privileges those most able to access power, and further marginalises those with least access to political, economic and cultural power. Meanwhile, non-governmental organisation (NGO) development interventions are fraught with tensions, often emerging from and operating within colonial charitable paradigms which arguably paradoxically reinforce dependency and powerlessness. In this chapter, we draw on fieldwork conducted with women affected by violence in Kenya, eastern DRC and northern Uganda to examine the ways in which a range of transitional justice mechanisms operate. In particular, we explore the effects of such interventions on women’s agency and their self-identification as citizens. We question whether large-scale NGO service provision might be inadvertently distancing women from their own resourcefulness and agency, and shifting women’s identities away from citizenship and towards the more passive role of ‘client’.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Tracing Australia’s Implementation of the Provisions Relating to Family Relations

This paper examines Australia’s efforts in implementation of provisions in the Convention that relate specifically to family relations and family law matters and the results that have been achieved. It recognises that whilst Australia has achieved some milestones in implementing the Convention in this area of law and policy, a more consistent, harmonised and sustained effort towards its full implementation is needed consistent with Australia’s standing as one of the most developed countries in the world.

The Child’s Right to Play: Laying the Building Blocks for Optimal Health and Weil-Being

The child’s right to play is often described as the “forgotten right” (Hodgkin & Newell, 2007, p. 469). Yet “play is one of the most distinctive features of early childhood” (CRC, General Comment No. 7, 2006a, p. 15). The right to play has long been recognised by the international community as a fundamental right (Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Article 7, 1959; UN CRC, Article 31, 1989). Research findings across disciplines suggest that play is instrumental in children’s cognitive and emotional development, socialisation and healthy physical growth.