The Israeli Independent Public - Abstract of the Inquiry Report - December 2021

| 6. The welfare system The survivors sought to highlight their difficulties finding work and supporting themselves and acquiring an education. Coping with a serious post-traumatic disorder on a daily basis sometimes makes it impossible to invest in building a career and working steadily. Of course, this has a direct impact on survivors’ economic condition, and some find it hard to survive financially. About a quarter (24%) of the participants noted they encountered financial difficulties in their adult lives due to the abuse they suffered. 50% encounter difficulties functioning at work and about 40% have monetary expenses on psychotherapy. About 11% of the participants subsist solely on a disability pension. The testimonies reveal the pain of survivors suffering economic difficulties due to dysfunction following the trauma. Some live in poverty and suffer hardship, while others are entirely dependent on their disability pension, which does not suffice to cover their living expenses and certainly does not cover treatment expenses. Following are the main recommendations: 1. The State of Israel signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, stating its commitment, on both the national and international level, to provide security to all Israeli children. It must therefore compensate victims of child sexual abuse, since responsibility for the abuse lies above all with the state, which failed to protect them. 2. It is necessary to implement a major reform in procedures for receiving official recognition that one is a survivor of child sexual abuse . The recognition procedure, as it is conducted at present and as described by survivors, is humiliating, inappropriate, inaccessible, and recreates the trauma. The procedure should be made accessible, trauma-informed, and aware of child sexual abuse in all its stages and aspects. 3. As part of the reform, the recognition process should begin automatically from the moment the perpetrator has been convicted of an offence of specific severity, even if the recognition is temporary. The process of recovery and support for the victim should begin as early as possible.

The Israeli Independent Public Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

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