Five years on – sexual abuse survivors’ reflections on their involvement with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and its legacy

This study explores survivor experiences of participating in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), with a focus on the longer-term impact of testimony, institutional response and the legacy of inquiry processes. It also examines how survivors interpret the relationship between being heard and subsequent governmental action. Adopting a pragmatic epistemological position, the study employed a mixed methods design comprising an online survey (n = 15) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) with individuals who had contributed to IICSA. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively, while qualitative data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings demonstrate that while participation in the inquiry provided meaningful opportunities for voice, validation and identity repositioning, these experiences were often destabilised over time in the absence of perceived governmental action. Recognition was experienced as contingent and could become “hollowed” when not sustained through institutional response. Participants described a liminal identity positioned between empowerment and marginalisation, alongside a sense of deferred closure in which the inquiry remained experientially unfinished. The impact of inquiries is structured by competing temporalities, where misalignment between survivor urgency and institutional response produces deferred closure, fragile recognition, and unstable post-inquiry identities. In response, many engaged in cyclical patterns of activism, understood as adaptive strategies for maintaining agency while managing emotional demands. The study contributes to theoretical understandings of recognition, identity and justice by conceptualising them as dynamic, relational and temporally unfolding processes. It also offers practical insights for the design of public inquiries, highlighting the importance of sustained institutional accountability, as well as clinical implications for supporting survivors beyond the point of testimony. Overall, the findings suggest that the impact of public inquiries extends beyond their formal conclusion, with the relationship between testimony and institutional response playing a critical role in shaping survivor experiences over time.