As a member of the Catholic Church that I love and as a victim of clerical physical and sexual abuse, I am appalled, embarrassed, but mostly profoundly saddened by the ways priests, bishops, cardinals and even popes deliberately and knowingly have mishandled clerical sexual abuse issues. Instead of being transparent, honest and law-abiding, they consistently have chosen to cover up these crimes, usually only releasing somewhat accurate information and evidence and only when they are dragged into court or forced to do so by laws that bound the rest of us.
I don’t believe the bishops, the cardinals and especially the entrenched bureaucracy in the Vatican and Catholic Church worldwide get it yet. For more than 50 years they have been aware of the accusations and the wrenching stories from thousands of victims.How could they not get it?
Pope Francis gets it. He has many times publicly talked about the enormity of and prevalence of clerical abuse and the fallout for victims and the reputation of the Catholic Church. But he needs real, visible and active support from all priests, bishops and cardinals worldwide. Where is this leadership and support? If one needs a prime example of groupthink, look no further than today’s Catholic Church. The Church has circled the wagons and done very little else.
Enough. Over 1 billion Catholics can deal with the truth better than the hierarchy apparently can. Tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding the whole sordid story of sexual abuse by priests and the equally sordid story of the Church’s organized cover-up of these crimes. We all need to clearly hear the what, the who, the where, and the when of incidents and complaints made against priests and how the bishops dealt with these complaints.
Isn’t this the Church that always preached that “confession is good for the soul”?
The Catholic Church needs an additional commandment, the 11th commandment: There shall be zero tolerance for any form of sexual abuse by clergy.
When a complaint or information is received, it must be immediately turned over to the police and investigated as would happen with any other sex-crime allegation. No exceptions. No more internal investigations by the Church. The Catholic Church is not a privileged group and must follow all laws just like everybody else.
In the 1990s, when South Africa was dealing with the violent aftermath of apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu founded the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It brought together all the warring factions. All the atrocities, killings and cruelties were aired openly and honestly. It hurt greatly to speak these truths and to hear these truths. But doing so brought reconciliation and healing to a troubled country. Archbishop Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his courageous efforts.
The Catholic Church needs its own Truth and Reconciliation Commissions made up of at least 50 percent lay people, at least half of whom would be victims of clerical sexual abuse and their families. I think they would add great credibility if Pope Francis were to ask Archbishop Tutu to be chairman.
When the Catholic Church has its own Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, we will need to brace ourselves for some heartbreaking, ugly testimony of abuse of minors, cover-ups, lies, deception, moving sexual predators from place to place and the awful consequences all this has had on victims and the worldwide Catholic Church. We all need to hear, own, and even embrace these awful stories and accept they are truly part of our history.
We need to have many, many open discussions, experience the gamut of emotions and support one another in this awful journey, knowing this has to happen before healing can begin.
Truth can often initially bring great hurt and pain but eventually also great healing and forgiveness.
I believe the Church needs to finally come clean and go through this with honesty, integrity and courage, embracing the truth about clerical abuse.
These commissions could bring the Catholic Church closer to its early roots and and to its founder. It could bring back some of the disaffected millions of Catholics who lost their faith, respect and trust in their Catholic Church. The Church must take a much-needed, honest look at how it lost its way.
Will it be a quick-and-easy fix? No. Will it eventually help heal and make us whole again? Yes. Coming out of the shadows, the creation of these commissions would be the most Christ-like, courageous and healing action ever undertaken by the modern Catholic Church.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-04-14 12:46:052015-04-14 12:46:05Damien Cronin, Local View: Catholic Church must confront legacy of abuse, Duluth News Tribune
The father, uncle and brother of 16-year-old girl in West Bengal have been arrested for allegedly repeatedly raping the girl over a period of two years, according to police.
Police in the Jalpaiguri district said the girl had become pregnant twice during her alleged abuse, and had been forced to have an abortion both times.
The girl had attempted suicide four times, police said, adding that the girl’s mother had been aware of the alleged repeated rape of her child but had stayed silent.
After feeling too scared to speak out about her alleged repeated abuse, the girl confided in a schoolteacher in the Dhupguri town of West Bengal on Thursday, when she was taken to the police and registered a complaint against the three men.
“Her father, a farmer aged around 50, allegedly raped her several times. She alleged that her uncle also raped her and of late her brother had also started,” police spokesman K.L. Sherpa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The teenager is now living in the custody of her aunt.
Reporting rape as a crime in India has surged since the fatal gang rape and attack of a woman on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, which sparked mass protest across India, bringing a new global focus to the treatment of sexual abuse and crimes on the sub-continent.
Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the alleged gang rape of a nun in her 70s Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the alleged gang rape of a nun in her 70s Official figures for the number of women raped in India are often disputed by Women’s Rights experts who claim the numbers are far higher Official figures for the number of women raped in India are often disputed by Women’s Rights experts who claim the numbers are far higher Mukesh Singh, who appears in the film, was sentenced to death for his part in the 2012 rape Mukesh Singh, who appears in ‘India’s Daughter’, claimed women are more responsible for rape than men ‘India’s Daughter,’ the documentary focusing on the incident and the culture of sexual violence in India, included interviews with the perpetrators while in prison, one of whom claimed that “a girl is more responsible for rape than a boy”.
In another brutal case, three men last year confessed to the gang rape and killing of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a tree in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The brutal gang-rape of an elderly nun was the latest case to receive global scrutiny. The woman in her 70s was attacked as she attempted to stop burglars ransacking the convent she and other women lived in. Eight men have since been arrested.
There was a 2.7 per cent leap in reports of crimes against women between 2012 and 2013, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, but most cases still go unreported in make towns and villages due to the shame and stigma attached to rape victims, where the victim is often blamed for the abuse.
In some villages, local councils act as de facto courts, often ordering rape to punish women, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported.
In January 2014, a 20-year-old woman in West Bengal state was gang-raped by 13 men on the orders of a village court as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different community.
Full article here: http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/13/father-uncle-and-brother-of-16-year-old-indian-girl-arrested-for-raping-her-repeatedly/
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-04-14 03:05:002015-04-14 03:05:00Father, uncle and brother of 16-year-old Indian girl arrested for raping her repeatedly, NY Times
Information passed to Newsweek has revealed that global horror over child abuse and its concealment by the Establishment, hitherto focused squarely on the UK, now needs to be widened to France as well.
Thousands of children in French schools have been sexually abused by paedophile teachers, an international NGO has claimed, accusing the French education authorities of a decades-long “cover-up”.
The revelations emerged when a 45-year-old headteacher in the town of Villefontaine, near Lyon, was accused last month of blindfolding two six-year-old pupils and forcing them to perform oral sex on him as part of a workshop on “experiencing new tastes”.
It later emerged that the headteacher, who confessed to raping nine other children at the school, had a 2008 conviction for possessing images of child pornography. Despite this, he had not been banned from working with children.
The French education system is set to become the focus of a national scandal after minister for education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was forced to admit last week that 16 teachers were allowed to work in schools last year despite holding previous convictions for paedophilia.
Marie Grimaud, the lawyer representing the two children, as well as seven others from the ages of three to seven, says in an exclusive interview with Newsweek that the cases coming to light at the moment are only “the tip of the iceberg”.
Homayra Sellier, founder of Innocence en Danger, an NGO dedicated to child abuse victims, says: “The ministry of education has covered this up for years. The government has never been inclined to listen to these stories.”
Sellier says her NGO is now being “showered” with reports of abuse. In the past few days, she has received dozens of new cases. One case can include complaints from as many as 20 children, and Sellier forecasts thousands of cases will emerge, a concern echoed by another French NGO, Lueur d’Enfance, which works to support and defend the rights of children.
According to Grimaud, teachers who try to speak out about child abuse at the hands of other teachers are silenced by school directors and local officials, and even threatened with legal action – usually defamation. Others have lost their jobs. As for the teachers the children accuse, they usually stay at the same school, or are quietly transferred to another. “The taboo is extremely strong within the French national education system about the existence of paedophile acts committed against students,” she says.
Vallaud-Belkacem, the education minister, has promised a thorough investigation into “the failures of the system” and has described the abuse as “intolerable”. The investigation will also ask why the ministry of justice did not regularly pass on information about convicted paedophiles to the ministry of education.
Yet Sellier argues that as well as changing the law so that anyone convicted of paedophilia is prevented from working with children, above all, children need to be listened to when they complain of abuse. “Children don’t brag about being raped or playing with a teacher for sex, it’s not like bragging about how many toy cars they own,” she says.
“French people are now going mad over this, but for us, this is not news,” she continues. “France has got to wake up now.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-04-13 03:39:482015-04-13 03:39:48Felicity Capon, National Scandal Over Major Child Abuse Cover-Up in French Schools, News Week
A Minnesota bankruptcy judge agreed to give the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse more time to negotiate the terms of a settlement, but the two sides remain at odds of over the proposed deadline by which victims must file claims in order to be compensated.
Following a hearing Thursday, Judge Robert Kressel of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minneapolis gave the archdiocese through at least Nov. 30 to draft a reorganization plan. The plan likely will center on a settlement among the archdiocese, its insurance carriers and alleged victims, all of whom were ordered to begin mediation shortly after the archdiocese filed for chapter 11 protection in January.
The archdiocese says it needs more time to work out deals with its insurance carriers, which could significantly increase the assets available to compensate victims. The archdiocese’s efforts have been complicated by that fact that it has more than 30 different insurance policies issued by about 15 different carriers spanning the late 1940s to present, court papers show.
The archdiocese has also proposed an Aug. 3 deadline for alleged sexual-abuse victims to come forward with formal claims, which is sooner than the deadline proposed by victims’ lawyers, who say more time is needed to contact victims and to help them file claims.
“The vast majority of survivors don’t live on the grid,” said Patrick Wall, a former priest who now works for Jeff Anderson & Associates, a law firm representing a group of abuse victims. “It takes time.”
Abuse victims and their advocates are pushing for at least six months from the date the deadline is set and possibly until May 2016, when the Minnesota Child Victims Act expires.
The act, passed by the Minnesota legislature in 2013, expanded the statute of limitations for sexual-abuse cases in the state, leading to the wave of lawsuits that ultimately forced the archdiocese into bankruptcy.
A lawyer for the archdiocese did not respond to requests for comment Friday, but in court papers, the archdiocese has proposed placing ads in USA Today as well as many other local publications to ensure victims are given notice of the deadline.
A hearing on the claims deadline, also known as the bar date, is scheduled for April 16.
Recent court papers show 139 alleged sexual-abuse victims have filed claims, though that number is expected to grow once the deadline to file claims is set and more people come forward with allegations.
According to court papers filed by the archdiocese, lawyers for the archdiocese, its insurance carriers and lawyers for alleged abuse victims have already outlined the broad terms of a settlement. The general provisions include a committee to administer victims’ claims, a future claims representative for victims of past abuse that come forward in the future as well as the settlement of claims against the archdiocese’s individual parishes through so called channeling injunctions.
All of these provisions have been successfully implemented in other diocesan bankruptcies. In total, 14 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have turned to chapter 11 bankruptcy to address waves of litigation related to alleged sexual abuse by priests and others, the vast majority of which allegedly took place decades ago.
Once a comprehensive settlement among the Twin Cities archdiocese, insurance carriers and alleged victims is reached, it will still require final approval from Judge Kressel.
Brenda Tracy and two other high-profile survivors of sexual assault urged lawmakers Wednesday to extend the time frame in which officials can prosecute rape cases.
Testifying before a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, Tracy and other advocates asked legislators to more than triple the statute of limitations, from six to at least 20 years. Committee members are weighing three possible changes under House Bill 2317: extending Oregon’s limit to 12 years, to 20 years, or to eliminate the limit altogether.
The 12- and 20-year limits would allow crimes against minors to be prosecuted after the deadline, if charges were filed before the victim’s 30th birthday.
Tracy, in her testimony, described the terror she felt in the early morning hours of June 24, 1998, when four football players — including two on the Oregon State University team — stood around cheering as they took turns raping her. Later, she learned none would be prosecuted.
“I truly felt like a piece of garbage,” said Tracy, who first revealed her story publicly to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s John Canzano last fall. “The only thing I thought at that point was ‘How do I kill myself so my children don’t find my body?'”
“This event could have killed me,” she said, fighting back tears. “And for some victims, it does.”
Tracy was joined by Jenny Wendt Ewing, a Eugene resident who successfully pushed for similar changes in her home state of Indiana, and Danielle Tudor, a longtime Oregon activist who was attacked by “Jogger Rapist” Richard Gillmore in 1979.
Although Gillmore was caught in 1986 and sentenced to prison, charges were never brought in Tudor’s case because the statute of limitations for rape — at the time, three years — had expired.
“Under today’s six-year archaic law, my rapist would still not have been prosecuted,” Tudor told legislators. “My rapist was clever enough and intelligent enough not to leave DNA evidence behind on the majority of his victims, so under today’s current law with DNA evidence, he still would not be charged. If we are truly concerned about public safety, then we need to make sure this scenario never happens again.”
Oregon has one of the shortest limits in the country for prosecuting rape cases. Thirty-three states have at least decadelong statutes of limitations; of those, 20 have no time limit at all.
Even so, lawyers’ advocates say extending the limit too long would make it difficult to give defendants a fair trial. They argue evidence — including text messages, social media correspondence and phone records — disappear over time.
“The statute of limitations is not a technicality,” Gail Meyer, legislative representative for the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said in an interview. “It’s the underpinning of a fair trial.”
“You can’t go back 20 years and shine the floodlight of truth,” she added.
Victims’ advocates, however, say extending the limit wouldn’t lead to wrongful convictions because only the strong cases would be prosecuted.
“I know we’re afraid that there’s going to be he-said, she-said cases that come up,” said Ewing, who led an effort to extend Indiana’s limit after a man who confessed to raping her in 2005 was allowed to walk away free. “You know, the burden of proof is still going to be on the prosecution.”
Another public hearing on the bill will be held this week before the committee decides whether to send it to the House floor.
Full article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/brenda_tracy_sexual_assault_su.html
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-04-12 12:17:002015-04-12 12:17:00Ian Kullgren, Brenda Tracy, sexual assault survivors urge lawmakers extend time limit for rape prosecutions, OregonLive
In honor of April being National Child Abuse Prevention Month, we have teamed up with Paoli Hospital to offer our “Keep Your Kids Safe” seminar.
And don’t forget to save the date May 2nd for our 3rd Annual 5k run/walk!
“Keep Your Kids Safe” Seminar at Paoli Hospital
Paoli Hospital and Justice4PAKids are teaming up to help educate all adults on sexual assault prevention methods for their children. Featured speakers include incest survivor, Tammy Lerner and attorney Beth Pitts. Join us onApril 15th from 7-8pm in the Potter Room at Paoli Hospital. To register email: info@justice4pakids.org
Annual 5k
Only one month until our 3rd Annual 5k/1 mile walk on the beautiful Chester Valley Trail, 140 Church Farm Lane, Exton, PA. Come run and/or walk for the victims of sexual abuse and show support for the cause! Our race will be timed with awards for our top finishers!
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-04-11 20:49:202015-04-11 20:49:20Mark your calendar for SOL events
Damien Cronin, Local View: Catholic Church must confront legacy of abuse, Duluth News Tribune
/in Minnesota /by SOL ReformAs a member of the Catholic Church that I love and as a victim of clerical physical and sexual abuse, I am appalled, embarrassed, but mostly profoundly saddened by the ways priests, bishops, cardinals and even popes deliberately and knowingly have mishandled clerical sexual abuse issues. Instead of being transparent, honest and law-abiding, they consistently have chosen to cover up these crimes, usually only releasing somewhat accurate information and evidence and only when they are dragged into court or forced to do so by laws that bound the rest of us.
Pope Francis gets it. He has many times publicly talked about the enormity of and prevalence of clerical abuse and the fallout for victims and the reputation of the Catholic Church. But he needs real, visible and active support from all priests, bishops and cardinals worldwide. Where is this leadership and support? If one needs a prime example of groupthink, look no further than today’s Catholic Church. The Church has circled the wagons and done very little else.
Enough. Over 1 billion Catholics can deal with the truth better than the hierarchy apparently can. Tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding the whole sordid story of sexual abuse by priests and the equally sordid story of the Church’s organized cover-up of these crimes. We all need to clearly hear the what, the who, the where, and the when of incidents and complaints made against priests and how the bishops dealt with these complaints.
Isn’t this the Church that always preached that “confession is good for the soul”?
The Catholic Church needs an additional commandment, the 11th commandment: There shall be zero tolerance for any form of sexual abuse by clergy.
When a complaint or information is received, it must be immediately turned over to the police and investigated as would happen with any other sex-crime allegation. No exceptions. No more internal investigations by the Church. The Catholic Church is not a privileged group and must follow all laws just like everybody else.
In the 1990s, when South Africa was dealing with the violent aftermath of apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu founded the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It brought together all the warring factions. All the atrocities, killings and cruelties were aired openly and honestly. It hurt greatly to speak these truths and to hear these truths. But doing so brought reconciliation and healing to a troubled country. Archbishop Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his courageous efforts.
The Catholic Church needs its own Truth and Reconciliation Commissions made up of at least 50 percent lay people, at least half of whom would be victims of clerical sexual abuse and their families. I think they would add great credibility if Pope Francis were to ask Archbishop Tutu to be chairman.
When the Catholic Church has its own Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, we will need to brace ourselves for some heartbreaking, ugly testimony of abuse of minors, cover-ups, lies, deception, moving sexual predators from place to place and the awful consequences all this has had on victims and the worldwide Catholic Church. We all need to hear, own, and even embrace these awful stories and accept they are truly part of our history.
We need to have many, many open discussions, experience the gamut of emotions and support one another in this awful journey, knowing this has to happen before healing can begin.
Truth can often initially bring great hurt and pain but eventually also great healing and forgiveness.
I believe the Church needs to finally come clean and go through this with honesty, integrity and courage, embracing the truth about clerical abuse.
These commissions could bring the Catholic Church closer to its early roots and and to its founder. It could bring back some of the disaffected millions of Catholics who lost their faith, respect and trust in their Catholic Church. The Church must take a much-needed, honest look at how it lost its way.
Will it be a quick-and-easy fix? No. Will it eventually help heal and make us whole again? Yes. Coming out of the shadows, the creation of these commissions would be the most Christ-like, courageous and healing action ever undertaken by the modern Catholic Church.
Local View_ Catholic Church must confront legacy of abuse _ Duluth News Tribune
Father, uncle and brother of 16-year-old Indian girl arrested for raping her repeatedly, NY Times
/in International /by SOL ReformThe father, uncle and brother of 16-year-old girl in West Bengal have been arrested for allegedly repeatedly raping the girl over a period of two years, according to police.
Police in the Jalpaiguri district said the girl had become pregnant twice during her alleged abuse, and had been forced to have an abortion both times.
The girl had attempted suicide four times, police said, adding that the girl’s mother had been aware of the alleged repeated rape of her child but had stayed silent.
After feeling too scared to speak out about her alleged repeated abuse, the girl confided in a schoolteacher in the Dhupguri town of West Bengal on Thursday, when she was taken to the police and registered a complaint against the three men.
“Her father, a farmer aged around 50, allegedly raped her several times. She alleged that her uncle also raped her and of late her brother had also started,” police spokesman K.L. Sherpa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The teenager is now living in the custody of her aunt.
Reporting rape as a crime in India has surged since the fatal gang rape and attack of a woman on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, which sparked mass protest across India, bringing a new global focus to the treatment of sexual abuse and crimes on the sub-continent.
Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the alleged gang rape of a nun in her 70s Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the alleged gang rape of a nun in her 70s Official figures for the number of women raped in India are often disputed by Women’s Rights experts who claim the numbers are far higher Official figures for the number of women raped in India are often disputed by Women’s Rights experts who claim the numbers are far higher Mukesh Singh, who appears in the film, was sentenced to death for his part in the 2012 rape Mukesh Singh, who appears in ‘India’s Daughter’, claimed women are more responsible for rape than men ‘India’s Daughter,’ the documentary focusing on the incident and the culture of sexual violence in India, included interviews with the perpetrators while in prison, one of whom claimed that “a girl is more responsible for rape than a boy”.
In another brutal case, three men last year confessed to the gang rape and killing of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a tree in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The brutal gang-rape of an elderly nun was the latest case to receive global scrutiny. The woman in her 70s was attacked as she attempted to stop burglars ransacking the convent she and other women lived in. Eight men have since been arrested.
There was a 2.7 per cent leap in reports of crimes against women between 2012 and 2013, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, but most cases still go unreported in make towns and villages due to the shame and stigma attached to rape victims, where the victim is often blamed for the abuse.
In some villages, local councils act as de facto courts, often ordering rape to punish women, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported.
In January 2014, a 20-year-old woman in West Bengal state was gang-raped by 13 men on the orders of a village court as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different community.
Full article here: http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/13/father-uncle-and-brother-of-16-year-old-indian-girl-arrested-for-raping-her-repeatedly/
Felicity Capon, National Scandal Over Major Child Abuse Cover-Up in French Schools, News Week
/in International /by SOL ReformInformation passed to Newsweek has revealed that global horror over child abuse and its concealment by the Establishment, hitherto focused squarely on the UK, now needs to be widened to France as well.
Thousands of children in French schools have been sexually abused by paedophile teachers, an international NGO has claimed, accusing the French education authorities of a decades-long “cover-up”.
The revelations emerged when a 45-year-old headteacher in the town of Villefontaine, near Lyon, was accused last month of blindfolding two six-year-old pupils and forcing them to perform oral sex on him as part of a workshop on “experiencing new tastes”.
It later emerged that the headteacher, who confessed to raping nine other children at the school, had a 2008 conviction for possessing images of child pornography. Despite this, he had not been banned from working with children.
The French education system is set to become the focus of a national scandal after minister for education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was forced to admit last week that 16 teachers were allowed to work in schools last year despite holding previous convictions for paedophilia.
Marie Grimaud, the lawyer representing the two children, as well as seven others from the ages of three to seven, says in an exclusive interview with Newsweek that the cases coming to light at the moment are only “the tip of the iceberg”.
Homayra Sellier, founder of Innocence en Danger, an NGO dedicated to child abuse victims, says: “The ministry of education has covered this up for years. The government has never been inclined to listen to these stories.”
Sellier says her NGO is now being “showered” with reports of abuse. In the past few days, she has received dozens of new cases. One case can include complaints from as many as 20 children, and Sellier forecasts thousands of cases will emerge, a concern echoed by another French NGO, Lueur d’Enfance, which works to support and defend the rights of children.
According to Grimaud, teachers who try to speak out about child abuse at the hands of other teachers are silenced by school directors and local officials, and even threatened with legal action – usually defamation. Others have lost their jobs. As for the teachers the children accuse, they usually stay at the same school, or are quietly transferred to another. “The taboo is extremely strong within the French national education system about the existence of paedophile acts committed against students,” she says.
Vallaud-Belkacem, the education minister, has promised a thorough investigation into “the failures of the system” and has described the abuse as “intolerable”. The investigation will also ask why the ministry of justice did not regularly pass on information about convicted paedophiles to the ministry of education.
Yet Sellier argues that as well as changing the law so that anyone convicted of paedophilia is prevented from working with children, above all, children need to be listened to when they complain of abuse. “Children don’t brag about being raped or playing with a teacher for sex, it’s not like bragging about how many toy cars they own,” she says.
“French people are now going mad over this, but for us, this is not news,” she continues. “France has got to wake up now.”
National Scandal Over Major Child Abuse Cover-Up in French Schools
Tom Corrigan, Minnesota Archdiocese, Abuse Victims at Odds Over Claims Deadline, Wall Street Journal
/in Minnesota /by SOL ReformA Minnesota bankruptcy judge agreed to give the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse more time to negotiate the terms of a settlement, but the two sides remain at odds of over the proposed deadline by which victims must file claims in order to be compensated.
Following a hearing Thursday, Judge Robert Kressel of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minneapolis gave the archdiocese through at least Nov. 30 to draft a reorganization plan. The plan likely will center on a settlement among the archdiocese, its insurance carriers and alleged victims, all of whom were ordered to begin mediation shortly after the archdiocese filed for chapter 11 protection in January.
The archdiocese says it needs more time to work out deals with its insurance carriers, which could significantly increase the assets available to compensate victims. The archdiocese’s efforts have been complicated by that fact that it has more than 30 different insurance policies issued by about 15 different carriers spanning the late 1940s to present, court papers show.
The archdiocese has also proposed an Aug. 3 deadline for alleged sexual-abuse victims to come forward with formal claims, which is sooner than the deadline proposed by victims’ lawyers, who say more time is needed to contact victims and to help them file claims.
“The vast majority of survivors don’t live on the grid,” said Patrick Wall, a former priest who now works for Jeff Anderson & Associates, a law firm representing a group of abuse victims. “It takes time.”
Abuse victims and their advocates are pushing for at least six months from the date the deadline is set and possibly until May 2016, when the Minnesota Child Victims Act expires.
The act, passed by the Minnesota legislature in 2013, expanded the statute of limitations for sexual-abuse cases in the state, leading to the wave of lawsuits that ultimately forced the archdiocese into bankruptcy.
A lawyer for the archdiocese did not respond to requests for comment Friday, but in court papers, the archdiocese has proposed placing ads in USA Today as well as many other local publications to ensure victims are given notice of the deadline.
A hearing on the claims deadline, also known as the bar date, is scheduled for April 16.
Recent court papers show 139 alleged sexual-abuse victims have filed claims, though that number is expected to grow once the deadline to file claims is set and more people come forward with allegations.
According to court papers filed by the archdiocese, lawyers for the archdiocese, its insurance carriers and lawyers for alleged abuse victims have already outlined the broad terms of a settlement. The general provisions include a committee to administer victims’ claims, a future claims representative for victims of past abuse that come forward in the future as well as the settlement of claims against the archdiocese’s individual parishes through so called channeling injunctions.
All of these provisions have been successfully implemented in other diocesan bankruptcies. In total, 14 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have turned to chapter 11 bankruptcy to address waves of litigation related to alleged sexual abuse by priests and others, the vast majority of which allegedly took place decades ago.
Once a comprehensive settlement among the Twin Cities archdiocese, insurance carriers and alleged victims is reached, it will still require final approval from Judge Kressel.
Hidden Predator Act Heads to Gov
Ian Kullgren, Brenda Tracy, sexual assault survivors urge lawmakers extend time limit for rape prosecutions, OregonLive
/in Oregon /by SOL ReformBrenda Tracy and two other high-profile survivors of sexual assault urged lawmakers Wednesday to extend the time frame in which officials can prosecute rape cases.
Testifying before a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, Tracy and other advocates asked legislators to more than triple the statute of limitations, from six to at least 20 years. Committee members are weighing three possible changes under House Bill 2317: extending Oregon’s limit to 12 years, to 20 years, or to eliminate the limit altogether.
The 12- and 20-year limits would allow crimes against minors to be prosecuted after the deadline, if charges were filed before the victim’s 30th birthday.
Tracy, in her testimony, described the terror she felt in the early morning hours of June 24, 1998, when four football players — including two on the Oregon State University team — stood around cheering as they took turns raping her. Later, she learned none would be prosecuted.
“I truly felt like a piece of garbage,” said Tracy, who first revealed her story publicly to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s John Canzano last fall. “The only thing I thought at that point was ‘How do I kill myself so my children don’t find my body?'”
“This event could have killed me,” she said, fighting back tears. “And for some victims, it does.”
Tracy was joined by Jenny Wendt Ewing, a Eugene resident who successfully pushed for similar changes in her home state of Indiana, and Danielle Tudor, a longtime Oregon activist who was attacked by “Jogger Rapist” Richard Gillmore in 1979.
Although Gillmore was caught in 1986 and sentenced to prison, charges were never brought in Tudor’s case because the statute of limitations for rape — at the time, three years — had expired.
“Under today’s six-year archaic law, my rapist would still not have been prosecuted,” Tudor told legislators. “My rapist was clever enough and intelligent enough not to leave DNA evidence behind on the majority of his victims, so under today’s current law with DNA evidence, he still would not be charged. If we are truly concerned about public safety, then we need to make sure this scenario never happens again.”
Oregon has one of the shortest limits in the country for prosecuting rape cases. Thirty-three states have at least decadelong statutes of limitations; of those, 20 have no time limit at all.
Even so, lawyers’ advocates say extending the limit too long would make it difficult to give defendants a fair trial. They argue evidence — including text messages, social media correspondence and phone records — disappear over time.
“The statute of limitations is not a technicality,” Gail Meyer, legislative representative for the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said in an interview. “It’s the underpinning of a fair trial.”
“You can’t go back 20 years and shine the floodlight of truth,” she added.
Victims’ advocates, however, say extending the limit wouldn’t lead to wrongful convictions because only the strong cases would be prosecuted.
“I know we’re afraid that there’s going to be he-said, she-said cases that come up,” said Ewing, who led an effort to extend Indiana’s limit after a man who confessed to raping her in 2005 was allowed to walk away free. “You know, the burden of proof is still going to be on the prosecution.”
Another public hearing on the bill will be held this week before the committee decides whether to send it to the House floor.
Full article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/brenda_tracy_sexual_assault_su.html
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