Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the Department of Religious Studies, has been publicly confirmed as an expert witness for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Gordon has been appointed alongside Professor Stephen Constantine (University of Lancaster) to advise the investigation into child sexual abuse in child migration schemes. They have already co-authored a substantial initial report for the Inquiry on child migration schemes and will continue to provide other evidence and reports for the Inquiry as it undertakes public hearings as part of this investigation in March and July 2017.
Child migrant schemes were operated by a number of charities and religious organisations and sent several thousand British children to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the former Southern Rhodesia.
The Inquiry will consider former child migrants’ experiences of sexual abuse, whether organisations involved failed in their duty of care at the time, and whether subsequent organisational responses have been adequate. With a substantial body of archival material to be reviewed from twenty organisations, this investigation will be the most substantial inquiry into these child migration schemes to have been undertaken in the United Kingdom.
Update 15 March: Further details of the inquiry have been posted on the main University of Kent webpage here: www.kent.ac.uk/news/society/12876/professors-expert-evidence-on-the-failings-of-child-migrant-schemes
Child migration has been a focus of Gordon’s research, having previously authored Remembering Child Migration: Faith, Nation-Building and the Wounds of Charity (Bloomsbury, 2015) and curated the exhibition ‘On Their Own – Britain’s Child Migrants’ at the V&A Museum of Childhood.