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IICSA published its final Report in October 2022. This website was last updated in January 2023.

IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Allegations of child sexual abuse linked to Westminster Investigation Report

Contents

A.4: Terminology and references

22. The Inquiry recognises that some people who have been sexually abused as children identify as victims, and others as survivors, of sexual abuse. In this report we use the term ‘victim’ rather than ‘complainant’ when referring to those who have made allegations of child sexual abuse. We use the term neutrally, without making any findings of fact in any specific cases. As stated above, investigating the truth of the allegations or reaching conclusions about them is not within the scope of this investigation.

23. Sexual abuse or exploitation at the time of some of the events in this report was then often described in ways which minimise the events as well as the impact on victims and survivors. For example, child sexual abuse was described as ‘paedophilia’, and those the Inquiry would regard as children as well as those in their late teens and 20s were often described as ‘rent boys’. We do not use such terminology in this report, except where we are repeating words used in evidence or in a record.

24. References in the footnotes of the report such as ‘INQ004094’ are to documents that have been adduced in evidence or published on the Inquiry website. A reference such as ‘Robert Glen 6 March 2019 78/3-13’ is to the hearing transcript which is available on the Inquiry’s website; that particular reference is to the evidence of Robert Glen on 6 March 2019 at page 78, lines 3 to 13.

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