I'm a survivor of child abuse in my family, then of rape and spiritual abuse by two Church of England priests who I went to for help. I'm one of over 800 victims (on average) who report their abuse to the church each year. All abuse has a traumatic impact; faith-based abuse has the added pain of betrayal by the faith community who should be there to protect and care for you. It can even rob you of your faith, and its destructive effects can be felt in every part of your life. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found that the Church failed to protect children from abuse, and the Church's response to reports has often been to disbelieve, deny or minimise the abuse, to protect the church's reputation, and with no care and compassion for victims.

Recently much has improved in church safeguarding, but institutions like the church still get things badly wrong and survivors are denied justice and healing. In response to IICSA's recommendations, the Church set up an Independent Safeguarding Board where survivors can bring complaints when safeguarding fails, and to make sure the Church improves its practice. Then last month the Board was suddenly dismissed, with no time to warn survivors. This has caused immense distress and harm and is a serious failure to safeguard by the Archbishops' Council; they have shown that they are not fit to manage church safeguarding. It's time to take safeguarding out of their hands.

Other victim-survivors, allies, and members of Survivors Voices, the survivor-led organisation I co-founded, think it's time for urgent action. We are calling on the Charity Commission to intervene and ensure that a truly independent body is set up that survivors can trust, without interference from the church. Please sign our petition, which will be submitted to the Charity Commission by the end of July.