People admitted into Queensland adult psychiatric asylums while they were children from the 1950s to the 1980s have called for a separate inquiry into the abuse, torture and neglect they suffered.
Child abuse at what was most commonly known as Wolston Park Hospital, at Wacol, has been described as some of the worst in the state's history. Its victims have never received formal acknowledgement or compensation from the state government.
Children, some as young as 11, but most between 13 and 16, were mixed in with the adult population and some were housed inside what was then called Osler House, a ward for those the courts had judged to be criminally insane.
Though the exact number is unknown some survivors believe there to be no more than 10.
Susan Treweek, who had spent most of her life inside state-run orphanages and mental health facilities despite never being diagnosed with a mental health problem, spent eight years at Wolston Park, after she was first placed in Osler House in 1980, aged 15.
She believes between 25 and 30 children were placed inside Osler House during her detention.
''I was assaulted when I first got to Osler House by one of the male staff,'' Ms Treweek said.
''Sexual assault became a bit normal, if that makes sense. There were a lot of men there. And when you are drugged up on medication, it is really hard to fight them off.
''I was assaulted [sexually] in 1983 and gave birth to a son. They adopted him out, said I could never be a mother. But as bad as it was, the disabled children who were placed there, they have never had a voice. And they had it as bad as any of us.''
Sandra Robinson said she escaped Wolston Park in 1968, a year after she had been placed there as a 15-year-old.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, she received her medical files in 1997 and discovered she had been assessed three months after arriving at the asylum and found to be suffering from no mental illness. The doctor recommended her immediate release and placement in a business school. However, no action was taken to remove her.
Ms Robinson said as a ''habitual runaway'' she had been placed in Wolston Park by child welfare officers as a last resort.
''I ran away early and they caught me. I was locked up in a room for two weeks and it was more or less open slather for any guy [who wanted to come in] by the staff. They [the men] just came in whenever they wanted,'' Ms Robinson said.
And they told me then that if I escaped again, that there was a lot of suicides in the Bremer River, that's the river that ran through Goodna. And I thought they could probably get away with that, because no one was stopping them from what they were doing.''
Ms Robinson said she didn't speak about her experiences within Wolston Park for decades, until she discovered she was not alone.
''I had it in my little head that they had stopped doing it, so I never told anybody. I never spoke about it until some of it hit the papers [in the mid 1990s]. I never spoke about it,'' she said. ''Then I found out that they were doing it for years and I had a real guilt trip about that for many, many years, because I should have done something. I should have said something.''
Dr Adele Chynoweth, a visiting academic at the Australian National University College of Arts and Social Sciences, learnt of the Wolston Park abuse while the curator of the National Museum of Australia exhibition Inside: Life in Children's Homes and Institution , which opened in Canberra in November 2011.
Shocked that these women had never received formal acknowledgement of the abuse they received while wards of the state, she said it was her ''duty'' to keep researching and shining a light on the issue.
''These children, and it was young men and women, did not have any diagnosis of mental illness, they were locked up without any diagnosis at all,'' Dr Chynoweth said.
''The children were administered quite strong drugs, some drugs that are now banned. Paraldehyde for example, which is known to melt plastic, so you can imagine what that may have done to young bodies.
''Members of staff had a field day with these young, vulnerable women, in terms of physical, psychological, sexual and emotional abuse.
''Until the Queensland government stops trying to cover this up and come clean, we won't know the extent of what happened in there.''
Brisbane priest Father Wally Dethlefs was a chaplain at the now-defunct Wilson Youth Hospital, later renamed the Sir Leslie Wilson Youth Detention Centre, in the mid 1970s.
After he became aware children from Wilson were being transferred to Wolston Park in early 1974, he would make the trip from Brisbane's inner city to Wolston Park in Wacol to visit them, as he knew ''otherwise they would have no visitors at all''.
''I was quite shocked it had happened in the first place, because Wilson when I worked there in the early to mid 1970s had psychiatrists on staff and I was quite shocked that some of those young people were transferred to Wolston Park,'' he said.
''They would just get in a visiting psychiatrist from the community and that visiting psychiatrist would just tick the box and they would go [to Wolston Park].''
The priest said he took his concerns to the government and met with then health minister Llew Edwards.
''But nothing was done,'' he said.
Sir Llew, who was health minister between 1974 and 1978, defended the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government's record and said systems were put in place during his tenure at the ministry to separate and acknowledge the difference between ''the mentally handicapped and those with a psychiatric illness'', a distinction that had not been previously made.
However, while he recalled meeting with Father Dethlefs, he said he did not recall being told of any specific cases of abuse.
''If there was a complaint, I can give you an absolute assurance, if it was reported, systems were introduced in that time to have them investigated. We appointed a new position called a patient's friend and that person was independent, they were employed by the government, but they were independent of the various hospitals and care centres, and that person could be approached in total confidence,'' he said.
''I can assure you that any complaint that came to me was certainly investigated. It may not have got the response that the particular complainant wanted, but we always fully investigated with an independent person.''
Survivors have documented their experiences of being too drugged to speak or locked away when government officials came to visit. Others have said they were just too scared to tell anyone, too fearful of the punishment they would receive.
Ms Treweek, who is now the subject of a movie, Scab Girl Asylum: The Sue Treweek Story, said she has had a former patient's friend corroborate her story.
Dr Chynoweth said she had spoken to the same patient's friend, who still works within Queensland Health, who had substantiated her research.
The women at the centre of the abuse believe their story, while ''made public from time to time'', is not public knowledge because ''people are ashamed''.
After years of lobbying, the Bligh government issued an apology to ''those who as children in the care of the State of Queensland suffered in any way while resident in an adult mental health facility'' in 2010.
Ms Robinson, who has been asked to comment at the latest Queensland Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection after being told by a government officer that ''you [are all] the worst cases of abuse we've ever heard'' said formal acknowledgement of the Wolston Park atrocities and compensation was long overdue.
''I have given up on justice. It will never happen,'' Ms Robinson said.
