This study was undertaken by Professor Lisa Oakley and Dr Jenny Hardy from the University of Chester. It consisted of a comprehensive literature review of findings from relevant academic studies and published reports as well as a qualitative interviews with 20 victim-survivors. Whilst previous research in this area had focused primarily on participants from single faith traditions, this study extended this work by comparing experiences across a range of faith communities. Participants in this study had experienced abuse in Christian churches, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Spiritualist Church or different traditions within Judaism and Buddhism.

The interviews used photo-elicitation methods in which participants are invited to create or find images which expressed important aspects of their experience or insights. In this case, the images were chosen by participants in relation to their disclosure, or choices not to disclose, their experience of having been abused in a religious context. The use of this approach can be seen as having particular value in enabling interviewees to have more control in shaping the content of research interviews and was welcomed by the victim-survivors who participated in this study.

There was substantial continuity in the findings between the limited, existing literature in this field and the qualitative research undertaken in this study. There was no significant variation in these themes depending on the religious tradition in which people had experienced abuse.

Participants commonly acknowledged that disclosing abuse was a highly vulnerable experience involving putting great trust in those hearing the disclosure. Both within the literature and the interviews, a number of barriers were identified to disclosing abuse. These included:

  • the normalization of some forms of abuse or lack of language to be able to recognize and describe the abuse;
  • the internalization of blame for having been abused;
  • an ethos or teaching within the group which discouraged disclosure;
  • the lack of anyone suitable or trustworthy to make the disclosure to;
  • fear of the consequences of disclosure – either for the victim-survivor (e.g. in terms of being disbelieved, rejected or losing important social networks), those around them or the reputation of their community.

Participants said that they had disclosed their abuse either because they felt unable to keep silent about their experiences anymore, they were encouraged, enabled or directed by those around them, or because they wanted to disclose in order to protect others, achieve justice or bring some positive change to their group.

Whilst some participants reported having received helpful responses to their disclosures – including being believed, heard and supported – many described experiences of disbelief, apathy, ostracism and a primary concern to protect the perpetrator or reputation of the wider community.

This study therefore demonstrated significant commonalities in participants’ experiences and insights in relation to their disclosures, or non-disclosure, of abuse across a range of religious contexts. Accounts of positive experiences of disclosure serve a valuable purpose for faith communities and other stakeholders in highlighting attitudes and responses that victim-survivors have identified as being helpful. Numerous accounts of barriers and harmful responses to disclosure, both within the literature and from the participants in this study, indicate that significant issues still need to be addressed in creating environments in which victim-survivors feel supported. Continued barriers to disclosure also raise questions about the extent to which issues of abuse in some faith communities are properly known and understood.