I’m Mark. I’m a writer, an actor, a comedian. A dad, a husband, an embarrasing dickhead (if you ask my teenage son) And a survivor of sexual abuse. Sometimes I’m a victim. Sometimes both. It depends how I’m feeling.
I also have the honour of being an Ambassador for The Survivors Trust. Today is about numbers – there are plenty of them on show – 20 recommendations, 7 years, 7000 testimonies, 1.5 million new victims.
But, more importantly, it’s about people. And their voices. Voices that we all thought had been heard, had been listened to.
I’d like to invite my friend Kellie Shirley – – actor and writer, and herself a survivor of sexual abuse – to come up now to share some of those real testimonies from the Inquiry and the Truth Project.
And now I’d like to invite Christopher and Colin – both survivors and participants in the Inquiry – to say a few words about their experiences and thoughts.
You may have already seen this short film we made to mark the 3rd anniversary of the IICSA Inquiries publications and recommendations being made – but for those who haven’t, we’re going to watch it now.
We knew we had to make some noise about the 3 years of missed opportunities and inaction. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how silence is often cacophonous. Deafening. The silence of that room. The silence in families, institutions, communities. The silence of people who can and should be changing things for the better.
We can’t ignore the elephant in the room. It’s too big. And it’s everywhere.
The elephant in the room doesn’t care which council tax band you live in.
It doesn’t care which box you tick for your income when you’re applying for a new credit card.
It doesn’t care whether you’re queuing to use the foodbank or to help run it.
The elephant in the room isn’t interested in the colour of your hair, your eyes, your skin.
It isn’t interested in your Personal Best, your golf handicap, or your heart rate recovery.
It doesn’t care who the Prime Minister is, how many times the cabinet is reshuffled, or now big the electoral swing is.
It could not care less about inflation, interest rates, the ‘markets’.
It doesn’t care if a perpetrator wears a cassock or a crown.
It doesn’t care if a victim is a CEO, a janitor, a Rt Honourable or just a scared boy in a grown up’s body trying to cope in a world where everything – including himself – feels wrong.
The elephant in the room knows there are many people who think we can’t afford to implement the measures needed to deal with, prevent, tackle abuse, and support victims – and it doesn’t care because it also knows the cost of sexual abuse. The billions we spend in this country each year dealing with the ripples and tremors outwards from every footstep of its giant elephant feet.
Because it’s there too, the elephant in the room, in every prison, every drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, every refuge, every homeless shelter, everywhere there is trauma – you won’t have to search for long to find the elephant in the room.
It knows that, in the end, everybody pays.
You have the power to change that. To make things better. To stop the elephant dominating, ruling, ruining lives.
For some of us, there will, sadly, always be an elephant in the room to remind us of what happened to us. Of how we’re different, or special, or broken. We have to learn to live alongside it. But I’m sure I speak for most, if not all, survivors when I say we want things to be different for others.
Please. Help. This is a Public Health Emergency. Don’t leave here until you’ve spoken to others about what you can do. Help. Please.
Here’s how you can help
- Donate today to keep the pressure up
- Write to your MP: Here’s a template that you’re welcome to tweak. Find your MP here
