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Otago Daily
Times
March 21, 2001
$100m in sexual abuse claims
NZPA
Wellington: 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% - were adults claiming for sexual abuse that happened when
they were children, according to Accident Rehabilitation Compensation and
Insurance Corporation statistics issued last week.
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 last week 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 it would have paid out more than $100 million since 1992.
The 47,000 cases arose from more than 70,000 claims understood to have been
lodged since July 1992. Most 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voluntarily withdrawn.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.
Dr Goodyear-Smith believed many of the lump-sum payments made by ACC in the
early 1990s would have been inappropriate.
About 98% 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
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. She said there was no proof it actually worked.
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