The Dominion
March 14, 2001
Sex abuse: 47,000 get compo of $100m
by Leah Haines
More than 47,000 people claiming to have been
sexually abused have received $100 million in cash and counselling from ACC
since 1992.
Most -- about 80 per cent -- were adults claiming for sexual abuse that
happened when they were children, according to statistics issued by the
Accident Rehabilitation Compensation and Insurance Corporation yesterday.
ACC offered counselling and, in some cases, regular weekly payments to those
it accepted had been mentally injured from sexual abuse.
It began collecting statistics on payments by its sensitive claims unit in
1994 -- two years after it was established.
Information issued yesterday showed it had paid out more than $94 million on
sex abuse claims since then.
Because many retrospective claims were filed in the early 1990s, statistics
indicated that ACC would have paid out more than $100 million since 1992.
The 47,000 cases paid out arose from more than 70,000 claims understood to
have been lodged since July 1992. Most of the unsuccessful claims were
understood to have been voluntarily withdrawn.
Sexual assault researcher Felicity Goodyear-Smith said past fears that many
claims were false, arising from suspect repressive memory therapy sessions,
had subsided since the early 1990s when a phenomenon of false claims was at
its peak.
The phenomenon was largely over, as damaging methods of memory retrieval had
since been exposed, she said.
Dr Goodyear-Smith believed many of the lump-sum payments made by ACC in the
early 1990s would have been inappropriate.
About 98 per cent of claims made then were granted on the basis of what
someone remembered had happened to them.
The claims were seldom tested.
Research had since shown that many of those people could have been wrong,
though they might have genuinely believed what they were claiming at the
time, she said.
Latest statistics showed the sensitive claims unit was granting a much
smaller percentage of claims.
Nevertheless, without evidence to back up people's claims, it would be
impossible to know for sure if someone had been abused, she said.
ACC issued new therapy guidelines in Auckland
yesterday for counsellors dealing with adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
It spent $6.5 million on counselling last year and more than $10 million on
regular compensation payments, rehabilitation and medical expenses.
Dr Goodyear-Smith cautioned against using counselling for sexual abuse
victims as she said there was no proof that it actually worked.
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