The Business of Life with Dr King

Ending Silence To Protect Children with Dr Matthew McVarish (Scotland)

• Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King • Season 2025 • Episode 51

Share episode

Send us a text

A single play sparked a family’s disclosure, an arrest, and a mission that now reaches the halls of the Council of Europe. We sit down with Dr Matthew McVarish to unpack how survivor voices can reshape laws, build child‑centred justice, and push governments beyond gestures toward real protection for children. From ending statutes of limitations to establishing survivor councils, Matthew shares a blueprint for practical change grounded in lived experience and rigorous policy work.

We explore the Brave Movement’s three global priorities: removing time limits that block prosecutions and leave offenders near children, making the internet safer without sacrificing legitimate privacy, and formalising survivor councils so lawmakers hear from people who have navigated the system. Along the way, we examine the ACE research linking childhood trauma to lifelong health risks and mounting economic costs, showing why prevention and trauma‑informed responses are both ethical and efficient.

You’ll also hear how the Barnahus model transforms child protection by bringing police, medical care, social services, and courts under one roof, replacing repeated testimonies with one forensic interview and swift therapeutic support. We discuss the power of language—why “survivor” matters, and why terms like child sexual abuse material clarify who is harmed and who is responsible. We close with concrete steps you can take today: create an open‑door culture at home, ask your school when it last updated its safeguarding policy, and use your voice to press for Barnahus standards and the end of harmful time limits.

If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the action you’ll take this week—what’s your first brave step?

Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King

Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....


The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King

Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
+1-202-827-9762
DrKingSolutons@gmail.com
DrKingSolutions.com


Dr Ariel King:

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Business of Life with Dr. King. Today we have a very special guest, Dr. Matthew McVarish. Welcome.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Good morning, Dr. King. It's so good to see you.

Dr Ariel King:

You too. So tell us, what are we speaking about today?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Well, I was thinking about that. I thought it would be interesting to share what I've been working on recently. I'm part of a global movement of survivors of childhood sexual violence and doing this work. It's trying to make the world safer for children. It takes on many different forms, I guess. So at the moment I have a role at the Council of Europe in in Strasbourg and the UK in I nearly said the UK, that's very much not the UK. It's in France and it's the seat of Europe. I I think there's a confusion for people who are not from Europe about the difference between the European Union and the Council of Europe. So the European Union or the EU is a kind of union of 27 nations, but of course, Europe is much bigger than that. So all of the countries, nearly 50 countries, gather at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. And I've been given this role there as an observer. So it's it's an interesting job to do because I'm there not as a lawyer or a social worker. I'm there because my childhood was filled with these horrendous experiences. And so I offer my lived experience to help these governments work together to end childhood sexual violence.

Dr Ariel King:

That's really such an important topic. Can you tell us more about why you started to do this and what you're doing now within this, within this realm of the Council of Europe and working with children who have had or experienced sexual violence?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

So I came to this work kind of about 15 years ago. I was an actor in the UK. I was on children's television, and I was also a writer. I would write television in theater. But my uncle, he was a school teacher at that time, and he had sexually abused me and three of my brothers when we were children. And typically, like most survivors, I didn't really want to even think about it, let alone speak about it. But I realized that my silence was quite dangerous. And by not reporting him, I was allowing him to remain in contact with other children. So it wasn't about revenge or compensation. It was literally an urgent matter of child protection that I ended my silence. But I did it in a particular way. I I wrote a play because that's what I did. I was an actor. And in the play, there's two brothers who've experienced sexual violence in their childhood. And all they do in the play is they speak about it for the first time, which in 2007 was quite powerful because we no one was really speaking about it at the time, certainly in Scotland. I invited my brothers to come and see the play, and I invited an organization called the Moira Anderson Foundation in Scotland who helped victims and survivors of sexual violence in childhood. And their founder, Sandra Brown OBE, hosted a post-show discussion. And this was how my brothers and I finally were able to speak about it for the first time. And within literally days, within just a few days of my play, our uncle was arrested. And that was after decades of silence about what he did to us. And so the play had become this catalyst for change, certainly in my family. And then my my realization was if that if it did that for my family, maybe it would work for other families. So I collaborated with other organizations. We took the play all over the world, really. We took it to the United States. There was other productions of it in France, there was productions, different companies started to do productions of it. And it is just a piece of theatre, but it's based on real life. And it encourages people in the audience sometimes to disclose abuse, sometimes for the very first time. And that's how I kind of transitioned from being an actor to being an activist. And um, when I would speak to people in the audience, I would say, you know, if you've experienced this and your offender is still in contact with children, you should press charges. And many people would say we would like to press charges, but we can't because of the statute of limitations, the time limit. And that for me was a foreign concept, literally, because we didn't have that in Scotland. We don't put a time limit on pressing charges. But that that meant literally, if my uncle had abused me in other countries in the world, he would have been left working with children because of this time limit. And I realized I needed to do something about that. So abolishing the statute of limitations has been, I guess, the central focus of my activism for 15 years. And there's a very long story, but last year in June 2024, the Council of Europe finally published an opinion on this treaty, which is all the governments have signed, which highlights abolishing this time limit as the most direct action that governments can take. Firstly, to allow all victims access to justice, which is their fundamental right, but also to ensure that their own police force can take action and remove dangerous individuals from contact with children. So it's it's been a long, literally a long road, but they're still getting there. But my role now is I co-founded a massive global movement called the Brave Movement, survivors from all countries coming together to push their government and all governments to do what's within their power to make the world safer for children. So my role in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe is to represent the voices of the global brave movement. And we have members now in 70 countries. So it's it's quite a task to make sure that everyone's views are represented. But we do one thing at a time, and the work is building momentum.

Dr Ariel King:

So that's fantastic. The Brave Movement that you've started, and it's people being able to advocate for children. And many of the people of the Brave Movement, you have people that have been affected by it, and also people that have been directly affected by it, and also perhaps affected within their families with uh child sexual abuse.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Yeah, the the brave movement is we call it a survivor-led movement, but you don't need to be a survivor of childhood sexual violence to join. It's uh survivors and allies, as we say. Some of the people in the movement have personal experience of these crimes in their own childhood, and some of them, as you say, are have family members or loved ones who have experienced it. And some are just parents who have never experienced it, and they want to make sure that the governments and their local authorities are doing what they can do. So we have three global priorities. The first one is to abolish the statute limitations to make sure that all victims everywhere can access justice. And again, that's not just about individual justice, that's about removing dangerous people from contact with children. So it has two benefits. The second one is to make the internet safe. There is a lot of pushback from particularly big tech companies to stop the measures that could be put in place to make the internet safer for children. It's unfortunate the discussion that because it's David and Goliath, the tech companies have so much money and they can lobby and they to stop the government having you know doing what they could do to make the internet safer. And they they create a rhetoric in the public, make people scared and believe that the government wants to read their emails, which is not the case at all. But so make the internet safe is the second one. And the third one is to encourage all governments to listen to their survivors. In Germany, they have a wonderful thing called the Survivor Council, which is where people in Germany who have lived experience through a formal process create a panel. And any legislation that affects children or adult survivors is passed across the desk of the survivor panel, and they get to use their lived experience to influence this policy and create change that's meaningful. And so we're pushing for all governments, particularly through the G7, to establish a National Survivor Council. And pleased to say that just this year, the UK and France have committed to creating such councils. So if we could have a survivor council in every country, that means that when governments are deciding how to improve their laws, they would be in dialogue with people who have experienced the justice system in their country. They understand how it needs to change, taking into account the nuances of the local culture or religion, all of these aspects that impact how people live in that environment.

Dr Ariel King:

I think it makes a very big difference when people who have experienced it or even within their families, friends, and so on and so forth get to have a voice about how not just it's reported, but then how people are given services, perhaps services of emotional support, psychosocial support, and even some actually for having issues with their physical health as a result of experiencing this.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Yeah. I mean, it's incredible now what we understand about childhood sexual violence. It's there was an incredible study done in the late 90s called the ACE study, adverse childhood experience study. And as my understanding was it started as a study of obesity, why do people become obese? And everyone they kind of studied was using food as a coping mechanism to avoid the pain of a childhood trauma. And so at that point, the research started to expand into how does a negative experience in our childhood impact the trajectory of our adult life? And there's so many outcomes that are now directly related, which is of course, if you're a sexually abusing childhood, for example, you're twice as likely to smoke. And if you smoke, you're a much higher risk of dying younger than someone who doesn't smoke. And that's one example. But literally, if you have a violent or traumatic childhood, you're statistically higher likely to die younger than someone who had a healthy, healthy, safe childhood. And that's for a number of reasons. We're starting to see that cancer and chronic illness are related to physiological stress. And if you had a traumatic childhood and your mind is in fight or flight, if you then you're constantly in this invisible physiological stress. And over decades, if you don't get psychological help, that will manifest in chronic illness. So sexually abusing a child, it it interrupts the entire trajectory and quality of their life. And governments are not recognizing that, especially when they put a time limit on it, because there's no time limit on the on the damage done to your life.

Dr Ariel King:

I think that's that's so interesting. That does make a difference, doesn't it? And when you when you look at this, I'm wondering whether or not do most countries, I know you say even the brave movement is within seven to 70 countries right now. Do most countries have a step-by-step process for children or adults who were abused as children or children who are abused, for example, reporting it, getting some kind of care. And do most countries actually have a process or is it still basically not necessarily a process that you go through within steps?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Well, if there was a fourth priority of the brew movement, I would say it's the Barnahoos system, which is a multidisciplinary interagency response model, which is a really long name for what is essentially this basic facility. It began in Scandinavia and Iceland and Sweden. And basically there's there's this Barnahoos, which means childhouse. And if a child has been sexually assaulted, they can go to this facility. And under one roof, there is the medical examination that might need to happen. There's of course the police, there's the social work and the therapeutic aspect. All of these different services that the child needs after after these experiences are brought together. And this is the practical application of the child's rights. In many, many countries, sadly, they don't have a system like this. And when a child is sexually assaulted, first of all, they're they're dragged to the police station. And at the police station, which is a scary place for a child, they might determine that the child needs to go to hospital to have a further examination, which is another scary place for a child. And then, of course, there's the courtroom and all these, and then the social work department and then the therapy center. So a child goes pillow to post, and all the time they're trying to put their whole life back together. The antidote to that is to have a Barna House. And that's why I've become personally an advocate for the Barna House system. And this year, I was really honored when I was invited to give the keynote at the United Nations when we launched the International Standard for Child-friendly justice, which is they've created an international standard for how to do the Barna House model, how to integrate that into your national legislation. And if you imagine in the past, children, even in Scotland, recently would be dragged into court. And that's an overwhelming situation for an adult, let alone a child. And we had a girl recently, just less than two years ago, and she had been sexually assaulted in Scotland by a group of adults. And the court case took, I think, four years. And then that time she was asked on different occasions by the police, by the courts, by the social work to repeat the details of the assaults, I think over 40 times. So that is not justice. Now, eventually, the people involved were sent to prison, of course. But that so we call that that she got justice. She didn't get justice because she was dragged through that horrible system. And if you think it's not necessary to do that to a child to make them focus and repeat those horrific experiences over and over again. So the Barna House has this beautiful system where there's cameras everywhere, of course. And the child is interviewed by a highly sophisticated forensic psychologist, and they're wearing an earpiece. And next door, and what would be if this was a physical house, it would be in the dining room. Around the table is the judge, the defendant, of course, the district attorney, and they're feeding questions to the earpiece of the psychologist who asks the child. And this has been videoed, of course. And in most cases, that becomes evidence in chief. And so the child can then go into therapy and they are removed from the legal process and let the adults chase what we call justice and let the child focus on rebuilding their life. This is a beautiful model, and it is working effectively in a number of countries. The Council of Europe highlighted it as best practice, I think, in 2015. And since then, there's been programmes by the Council of Europe and the EU and UNICEF to make sure this model is integrated in as many countries as possible. So if you're watching this in a country that doesn't have the Barn House model, I would say start making noise about that and go online and find the ISO, the international standard on Barnabas, and show that to your government and say this is what we need to be doing immediately.

Dr Ariel King:

So right now within the Council of Europe, are they looking at trying to, I won't say legislate, but really push governments to actually adopt this standard?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Yes, I mean it is endorsed as best practice, but I think we recognize that not every country has the money required to create such a facility. You know, we created the international standard for Barnabas. I was part of the working group who who worked on these standards as a survivor voice, really, for the Brave movement. There was also Europol, we're part of the working group, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, of course. But some countries have local authorities where the the judge doesn't have a printer, you know, so it's difficult to create an international standard that is it's aspirational for some parts of the world where you know there's there's much more economic pressing issues than than creating this sophisticated facility. But having said that, there's examples of incredible innovation where, for instance, in in some countries they developed a rate kit that didn't even have to be refrigerated. And this was through innovation, they created a solution for a complex problem. And so that can now be used, and evidence can be gathered even in the different parts of the world where refrigeration and transport can be complicated. So just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's impossible. And I think that the the heart of the Barna House model is cooperation. And to get the police force and the social work and the healthcare system and the courts to be speaking to each other doesn't cost as much money as building a physical facility, of course. So I think there's a there's a spirit and an ethos of the Barna House model that can still begin to work before you've even found the money to build the building.

Dr Ariel King:

I really love that idea. You know, I'm thinking about the just the one case. I'm sure there are literally thousands of the girl that you were talking about, the little girl who took four years. And I'm thinking, you know, if that little girl started at 13 or 14, but the four years is almost to the entire teenagehood, they have to recount that. And that's really traumatizing. And but I'm thinking to myself, how much did that cost? That has to be an incredible amount of resources, not just not just uh money resources, but resources of people, of intelligence, of the court system, of the social workers, all the people involved. So if you look at the fact that she had to talk about it 40 times, I'm not quite sure how many people are involved, but that seems to be like a a very large use of resources. So I'm wondering whether or not this child sexual abuse actually is economically quite costly, just in health, psychological courts, police, you know, four years or more of going through it. I mean, that person is dynamic. Most of adults couldn't go through that much. But I'm wondering the economic impact of all of this on a society, and that's just for one child.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Yeah, it's massive. I mean, of course, the Barnahouse model reduces years of lawyers' time, and that reduces years of lawyers' pay. And so there's a pushback by the justice system, by the people who keep the old system in place, and they're lawyers. They're excellent at arguing their point. So it's very hard to argue back with them, especially when you're creating a system which will reduce their their income. But you know, we need as humanity to move forward. The Brave Movement has an incredible campaign which launched on Friday called The Third Richest Nation, and this is aimed at the G20, which is going on this month. And it's a beautiful concept, which is the the third richest nation is a kind of fictional idea, but the nation who solved childhood sexual violence instantly became the third richest nation in the world because of the money they were not spending on the courts and on the aftercare and all of these things. And it is it's mind-blowing the cost to a nation of childhood sexual violence. And I think like whenever I'm sitting in front of policymakers, they they have I have a lot of experience in education on this issue from a lot of different perspectives in the many countries I've worked in. But sometimes you meet a politician or a policymaker and they don't have personal experience of it, and they only have their own country's experience of it, and that might be very early in the discussion. And so trying to convince them of why this isn't a priority can be difficult. But you can say to them, how much does your country spend on tackling homelessness, on tackling domestic violence, on tackling cancer? All of these things would be measurably reduced if you comprehensibly just focused on preventing childhood sexual violence, because the outcomes for the individual are massive and lifelong. And if you look at the scale that this is happening on, the cost to the individual country over decades is immeasurable, really.

Dr Ariel King:

That's a good point. That makes a very big difference. May I ask? I know you're working on the brave movement now. Can you tell us more of what you're doing and what you've been doing?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

So at the moment today, I'm I'm I'm drafting a presentation that I'm going to be giving next week in Moldova. And the presentation is on the term survivor and why that's important. So I introduced myself as a survivor of childhood sexual violence. I don't say I am a victim of childhood sexual violence because that's grammatically wrong and literally untrue. I was a victim when my uncle was assaulting me. I was the victim when I was going through the court case against my uncle. But I'm not a or the victim presently. I'm a survivor. And the reason that's quite important, there's research now showing that your ability to regain your life psychologically after sexual violence is impacted on the language that you use. If you see yourself continuing to be a victim, we we understand the concept of the victim mindset. So if someone has a victim mentality, they see themselves as powerless and they think that the problems in their life are everyone else's fault. And that's a very disempowering mindset to maintain. But it's actually kept by some governments and some media. They refuse to embrace the word survivor and use it in rhetoric, and that keeps the people affected by these crimes kind of stuck psychologically. But also in their community, there's a lot of stigma. If you've been the sexually assaulted in childhood, some communities kind of blame the victim. I think the example I got was in Bulgaria. They have a word in Bulgarian for someone who's experienced sexual violence, and it means one who has suffered. If you imagine that individual in those communities, and everyone sees them as the one who suffers. And it's very difficult to escape that unless we give them language and new concepts that help people move away from that. So next week I'll be in Moldova. It's called the Lanzarote Committee, who are all the government representatives from each country who have signed the Lanzarote Convention, which is the only treaty purely focused on ending childhood sexual violence. And I'll be presenting the need for the Council of Europe to acknowledge and define the word survivor, because it is being used now by the United Nations. It's been used, it has been used by the Council of Europe in some contexts. It's been used in some countries, particularly in the UK, and it gives a kind of perception of hope is that there is life after these crimes. It helps shift the public perception towards people who've experienced these crimes. So it's profoundly important that we examine our language. For example, we we don't use the term child pornography in legal documents. The Council of Europe doesn't use that term. We use the term child sexual abuse material, CSAM. And uh because it's very clear if you child pornography, children are not porn stars. If there's an image of a child that's a sexualized image, what you're looking at there is is an image of a child being abused. So that's child sexual abuse material. I have a friend at Interpol who says these images are actually crime scene images, is what he calls them, which is even more clear what those are. And it's powerful and it and it reorientates our psychology about what we're speaking about. And it helps us get very clear on who is the victim and who's the who's the perpetrator when it comes to CSAM. And so the term survivor needs to be used by by governments and media. And it's important that the institutions like the Council of Europe lead the way and lead by example in starting to incorporate this term. So that'll be next week. Last week I was in Paris. I was I was at a press conference in Paris on the Statute of Limitations, inviting the French government to take the final step towards complete abolition, as they are encouraged to do. The Brave Movement published a report with Child Global that shows uh all the countries and where they are with the statute of limitations. And we actually give the countries a score from A to F, which shows how dangerous their legislation is for children. And uh countries don't like that, of course.

Dr Ariel King:

No, most most of us don't want to be evaluated, especially when there's truth to it and we have to we have to move on it. You know, International Children's Day is coming up. I'm wondering for International Children's Day, what should we as society, as parents, as just people that perhaps know about people that know about children that have been sexually abused, but most of us are asked or pressured not to say anything, not to do anything. What what do you would you like for International Children's Day to happen when it comes to this issue?

Dr Matthew McVarish:

That's a beautiful question. I think there's a lot of Instagram moments which are which are nice. You know, there's a lot of countries that where what they do is they light up a particular building in a particular color on days like this, and it recognizes that it's the international day of something. I would ask you, I would ask everyone listening to do something practical that might change something in their own their own home and their own family. On International Children's Day, if you have children, look them in the eye and say, Do you know there's nothing you cannot speak to me about? And some parents get defensive and say, No, my children can speak to me about anything. And I'm sure my parents would have said that. And it might not be our child, it might be like children are more likely to speak to each other. And so we have a lot of peers disclosing to each other. My nephew has spoken to me in the past few years of a number of children in his school who've came to him to share that they've been abused, and I've given them a copy of my book to help navigate that. So, what to do? If you have children in your family, look them in the eye and say, Do you know there is nothing you cannot speak to me about? Because for many, many years, whilst I was being sexually abused, I was surrounded by other safe adults at school, at home, and at church, and I didn't speak to any of them. And so creating a culture where there's nothing off the table is the first step towards eradicating all violence against children, particularly sexual violence against children. It's where we where we open the door for children to share whatever they're struggling with. Because I think children often want to keep keep the peace. And so they don't want to point to the ugly thing. They don't they carry it internally instead of sharing it because they believe that sharing it will upset everyone or cause trouble and they'll have to get the police involved. But that's why we're called the brave movement because we're asking everyone, it's an invitation to be brave. You know, we have to have some difficult conversations if we truly are going to root this out of humanity. So it's an invitation for all of us to to be brave.

Dr Ariel King:

Thank you for that. And may I ask, are there any last, I would say, tips or anything that you'd like to tell our listeners about, you know, I guess uh child sexual abuse, but not only that, but just what we can do and who we are as a society when we either accept it or not accept it, or work with it or not work with it, or be brave enough to actually confront it and to do something about it.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Yeah, confront's a good word. I I think people feel powerless when it comes to issues like this. I would say the first step is to create a culture in your household, in your family, that there's nothing that can't be spoken about. If you're someone listening to this and you were abused as a child and perhaps you never began to heal, I would say it's never too late to begin healing. Doesn't matter what age you are, you can start the process, reach out. And I think it's about being proactive. I think children's rights are really nice ideas on a piece of paper unless we actually do something. They don't exist unless we put them into action. And those actions can be really simple. If you have children and they go to school, speak to the school and say, When was the last time we reviewed and updated our safeguarding policy? And just by asking that question, people might recognize the school and recognize we are being watched. Teachers are, you know, the teachers are being checked. I think one thing is to make sure that the school has inclusivity training. There's all kinds of families in the world these days. There's there's children who have two mums and two dads, and we need to find a way to make sure that these children aren't excluded. We need all teachers to do exclude exclusivity training for people who are trans, non-binary. The world is full of people of all kinds, and everyone is welcome, and everyone has the right to feel safe. And that begins with the the language that we use around children. So teachers have an opportunity and a responsibility to practice inclusivity in every in every way.

Dr Ariel King:

I want to thank you so much for this for this time together. I've learned so much. Thank you to Dr. Matthew McVarish and to our audience. Remember, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? That's by the philosopher Hillel. And I've added if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr Matthew McVarish:

Thank you, Dr. King.