Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse to become law

The National Secular Society has welcomed government plans to introduce a legal requirement to report child sexual abuse.

Under the proposals announced this week, people who work with children in England would be obliged to report suspicions of abuse to authorities. Those who failed to do so would risk being prosecuted.

The move follows the recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which published its final report last year.

IICSA also recommended that mandatory reporting should "not be subject" to religious exceptions. It said abuse must be reported even if it is revealed during "sacramental confession", despite objections from religious groups.

The government has not yet confirmed whether it will follow these recommendations.

More than one in ten survivors of child sexual abuse who shared their accounts with the inquiry's Truth Project reported sexual abuse in a religious institution.

The National Secular Society has persistently campaigned for the introduction of mandatory reporting of abuse, as well as the independent oversight of church safeguarding, abolition of statutes of limitations, and financial redress for survivors.

Mandatory reporting laws have been adopted in some form by most countries worldwide, including 86% of European nations.

NSS vice president: "Mandatory reporting is essential and long overdue"

NSS vice president Richard Scorer, a lawyer specialising in child and vulnerable adult abuse who represented the largest group of survivors in IICSA, said: "Mandatory reporting is essential and long overdue- survivors have been campaigning for it for years.

"However, with any mandatory reporting law the devil is in the detail, and it is imperative that the law is effective not just a gesture. This means including criminal penalties for non-reporting of reasonable suspicions of abuse. This is particularly important in insular religious settings where pressures against direct disclosures of abuse are so strong. Any watering down of what is needed to keep children safe will be a dreadful missed opportunity".

Richard Scorer has written more about mandatory reporting and IICSA's other recommendations here.

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