Through courage comes change

Religious sisters have supported communities around the world, yet their experiences of sexual and gendered violence within religious institutions have largely gone unheard. A generous gift from the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation is helping to change that.

^{📷  Church communities play an important role in confronting the legacy of abuse, fostering understanding, and supporting recovery and change.}

More than 650,000 religious sisters globally work in communities experiencing disadvantage, helping to shape education, healthcare and social services, yet many have silently carried harmful experiences throughout their lives.

With generous backing from the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation, respected University of Newcastle sociologist and alumna, Dr Kathleen McPhillips, is leading a project to ensure the experiences of religious sisters affected by sexual and gendered violence within religious institutions are heard and documented.

The project, Overcoming Silence: Working with Impacted Communities of Church-Based Sexual Abuse, aims to build the first substantial Australian evidence base of the religious sisters’ experiences.

^{📷  Dr Miriam Pepper (left), Dr Tracy McEwan (second from left), Dr Kathleen McPhillips (second from right) and Larney Peerenboom (right), researchers leading Overcoming Silence: Working with Impacted Communities of Church-Based Sexual Abuse.}

The project builds on the 2023 International Survey of Catholic Women, authored by McEwan, McPhillips and Pepper, with 17,000 respondents worldwide. Among the responses were 800 from self-identified religious sisters describing their experiences of harm and abuse in answers to open-ended questions.

“For too long, these voices have remained unheard. This research is about creating safe, trauma-informed opportunities for religious sisters to share their stories, while generating the evidence needed to support meaningful institutional change,” Dr McPhillips says.

The project will combine in-depth interviews, an anonymous international survey and an extensive review of Australian records, inquiries, memoirs and archival materials.

With great power comes great responsibility. Powerful and influential institutions need to be held to account when they fall down on this responsibility. We at the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation have a great deal of respect for the fearless research and actions of Dr Kath McPhillips and her team in holding religious institutions to account and effecting change in the way they operate. We know that it is difficult to find funding for such courageous work going up against powerful institutions. That’s why we are backing this research being undertaken by Kath, her team and the University of Newcastle.”

Tracy Norman
Founder and Chair of the Ian & Shirley Norman Foundation

If you would like to support a project that aligns with your values,
please contact our team on 02 4921 8612 or email donor-relations@newcastle.edu.au

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