Children in Victorian state-run youth centres were subject to cruel, humiliating and degrading punishment and a government department failed to protect them from sexual abuse, an inquiry has heard.
Some residents who were sexually abused did not report it at the time because they thought they would not be believed or would be punished, counsel assisting the child abuse royal commission Dr Peggy Dwyer said in a submission outlining the inquiry's possible findings.
Dr Dwyer has also said it is open for the commissioners to find the department failed to protect a number of residents of youth training and reception centres from being sexually abused during the 1960s to the early 1990s.
