Helen Kohn still remembers the stench of wet beds and the cries of young children. As she wipes away tears, she recalls the horrors endured during her childhood.
"Behind closed doors... well, the first thing that takes me to, are the beatings.”
Now 66, Helen was just two-years-old when she became a ward of the state.
With her two sisters, they grew up in Queensland’s Nazareth House.
Child abuse survivor, Helen Kohn, recalling her childhood Source: SBS
"I used to watch my little sister, Christine, in the baby section, being beaten with a brush, with the back of a hairbrush. She’d be blue.”
She was 17 before she was allowed to leave.
"There was no abuse I didn’t experience," she says, as she chokes up.
"This is the first time I’ve ever told anyone. Priests did come around when they felt like it.”
And that’s as far as she’ll go, the memories too harrowing to disclose.
"I have attempted to suicide, three times. Sometimes it gets too much.”
Helen became a ward of the state at the age of two. Source: SBS News
Redress scheme
Helen Kohn's anguish reverberates in the lives of survivors, across the country among the countless children abused in the institutions tasked with caring for them.
Over five years, their stories were the focus of a comprehensive Royal Commission. And on July 1, its recommended redress scheme will give them a chance to seek compensation.
Every state and territory has now opted into the scheme, which is capped at $150 thousand dollars, the average payout amounting to $76 thousand.
Social Services Minister, Dan Tehan, says the government has created the scheme with the help of survivors.
"And for those survivors, who sadly, might not have long to live, obviously we’d be looking to ensure that their applications are processed as quickly as possible.”
Social Services Minister, Dan Tehan. Source: SBS News
Angela Sdrinis represents hundreds of survivors seeking redress.
She says the scheme is a last resort option for those who can’t pursue civil claims.
"I think many survivors have been holding out for the redress scheme, I am worried that a number of them won’t really get the outcome they were hoping for and I’m expecting there to be quite a bit of trauma.”
Legal service, ‘Know More’ has been funded by the government to assist survivors to process their claims.
Director of client services, Amanda Whelan, hopes survivors will seek their assistance as they complete the 43-page application.
"It’s important, I think, for people to get good legal advice when considering legal options, because they will sign away their civil rights.”
While a ward of the state in Victoria, child abuse survivor, Rod Braybon was known as '74587' Source: SBS
Eligibility
Some survivors like Helen Kohn, may not be eligible because of prior settlements being adjusted for inflation.
And some, like Rod Braybon’s brother, who was incarcerated for 12 years, 56 years ago, may not get a cent – state attorneys-general to decide whether survivors who’ve spent more than five years in jail, can make claims.
“He has to apply for an exemption. How can you sentence somebody, twice?” He asks.
Rod and his siblings were wards of the state as children, he says they were all abused.
He spent most of his childhood, at Victoria’s Bayswater Boys Home.
It took child abuse survivor Rod Braybon more than 30 years to confront his childhood scars Source: SBS
“This number here is 74587, that’s the number I was known as, as a state ward.”
He also spent time in prison, as a 16-year-old, for just 18 months. He compares Victoria’s Pentridge Prison as a “holiday camp” compared to the Boys Home.
Rod will be pursuing redress.
"I think you just have to have enough courage, to face up to what happened to you in the old days. Make sure that the people who perpetrated the crimes against you, face up to what they did.”
The scheme will be open to applicants for ten years.
Rod Braybon and his siblings, known as numbers in the state ward institution Source: SBS
It could take them months to receive their compensation.
Whether it’ll mend wounds, is another story.
"It’s in our bodies, forever,” says Helen Kohn.
"And it’s something we have to deal with, forever.”
