What kind of society fails to protect children? British society. Here’s the proof

‘Prof Alexis Jay’s analysis insists that, even though abuse may be better understood, systems to prevent it are still failing.’ Photograph: Veryan Dale/Alamy

As the report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) delivers its findings, seven years in the making, the numbers alone are incredibly hard to confront: 79% of the thousands of victims and survivors who gave testimony were under 11 when the sexual abuse started. Children with disabilities and those who were already neglected were exploited disproportionately – a chilling insight into predatory behaviour: how it takes the very quality of vulnerability that should engender empathy and protection, and opportunistically exploits it instead.

Yet it is in hearing the voices of these victims and survivors that you begin to understand the vast and pressing duty this inquiry creates, a duty of root and branch change in how children are perceived, cared for and protected, and alongside that a duty of collective as well as institutional atonement.