Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at Kent, is one of the first expert witnesses at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Professor Lynch, of the University’s School of European Culture and Languages, together with Professor Stephen Constantine from the University of Lancaster, was appointed to advise the investigation into child sexual abuse in child migration schemes.
These 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.
Professor Lynch has already co-authored a substantial initial report, with Professor Constantine, for the Inquiry on these 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 until summer 2017.
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.