Interview Episode: Children in Scientology with Mirriam Francis

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

In the wake of updates to Child Safety Standards emerging from Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Mirriam Francis wrote to Victoria’s Commission for Children and Young People outlining the ways in which she sees Scientology teachings and practices to be violating these standards. While concepts of religious freedom and choice can muddy the waters of certain discussions around coercive organisations, Mirriam sees the regulations and laws to protect children as a key lens through which such practices need to be viewed and pursued. She speaks from personal experience that spans three countries.

EPISODE LINKS

• Child Safe Standards — Commission for Children and Young People Victoria (you can raise a concern here); Queensland Family & Child Commission (you can raise a concern here)

• Child Safe Scheme — NSW Office of the Children's Guardian (you can raise a concern here)

• Australian Child Safe Standards – A State By State Guide 2024 — Safe Space Legal

• Rage Against the Dark Arts — Mirriam Francis' Substack

• Thetans in Young Bodies — Season 2, Episode 1 of Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath in which Mirriam Francis features

• Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology — by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., the State of Victoria, Australia, 1965

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma — by Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin, 2015

• Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice — by Judith Lewis Herman, Basic Books, 2023

• Dianetics excerpt re: 7-year-old child responding to kiss from adult male

• A Children of God message to members mentioning their "friends in Scientology"

• Introduction to Scientology Ethics High Crimes