Still no anti-abuse campaign after Ferns

FIVE years after it was recommended by the Ferns Inquiry, the Office for the Minister of Children still hasn’t launched a publicity campaign informing children that they aren’t responsible for sexual abuse.

Children’s charities strongly support such a campaign believing that it would help disempower abuse perpetrators.

In 2005, the Ferns Report urged the then Department of Health and Children to “launch and repeat from time to time a nationwide publicity campaign” focussing on how children must never regard themselves as responsible for abuse and warning them that “abuse is perpetrated by persons in every walk of life”.