Government clarity sought on confession and mandatory child abuse reporting

[Imnobody4]

The gov appears to be excluding religious confessions from the duty to report child sexual abuse. Looks like the usual tactic of avoiding transparency on decisions being made

The National Secular Society has written to the Government calling for clarity on the extent of a new law to mandate the reporting of child sexual abuse.
In its concluding report in 2022, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) recommended introducing a mandatory reporting (MR) duty as "an absolute obligation" with no religious exemptions, including "sacramental confession".
The Government's Crime and Policing Act, which was passed in April, introduced a MR duty in England and Wales.
While the bill was going through Parliament, the Government assured the NSS it was "not considering any kind of exception to the mandatory reporting duty for religious institutions."
There would be "no exceptions" on the basis of where disclosures are received, "including confessionals", it added. The Government reiterated this position in responses to parliamentary questions.

Despite these assurances, the Church of England's lead safeguarding bishop Robert Springetts aid at General Synod last month: "It is now clear that confession is not a 'regulated activity' as defined by the newly passed Police and Crime Act".

Legal commentators have echoed the Church's assessment, and further parliamentary questions have not produced a clear Government position.

NSS seeks Government clarity on new child abuse reporting law | National Secular Society share.google/nr1bGBBWkSldDQtOy

Thanks for the link.

The government lied again.

All religions are archaic, trying to fit them into the requirements of a modern world is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I'm not a fan of any religion, but the 'confessional' has always struck me as absurd , the idea that you could commit a sin and then confess to it and be absolved from the sin, renders the concept of sin ridiculous.

"Research by Irish academic Dr Marie Keenan shows confession has been used by clerical sex offenders as a "site of respite from guilt" and may enable "abuse to continue".

Exactly right, by not doing anything about it, the church becomes enablers and allows the abuse to continue. For an organisation that likes to bang on about morals, they're very lacking in them themselves.

There's just been a ruling in favour of the church in Arizona.

The bishop (and his successor who also know of the child rape) saw the victim in church every Sunday for the next seven years and did nothing to help her nor her siblings who were also raped by their father,” he wrote. “The horrific sexual acts on these infants continued until the victim was 12 years old, when a gruesome 9-minute video of the horrific abuse came to the attention of law enforcement in New Zealand.”