بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Abuse of children was 'endemic'
Report identifies more than 800 cases of abuse in institutions run by Irish Catholic Church
By David McKittrick in Dublin
Kevin Flannigan of the Survivors of Child Abuse group, protests at not being allowed into the launch of the report
Kevin Flannigan of the Survivors of Child Abuse group, protests at not being allowed into the launch of the report
An official report into abuse – physical, sexual and emotional – in Catholic schools in Ireland produced a harrowing picture yesterday of ill-treatment which it described as
endemic.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...l?action=Popup
The long-awaited report, nine years in the making, blamed church leaders for doing nothing during decades of abuse but also blamed the inactivity of the Irish education ministry which it said was aware that brutality was common but had failed to act on it.
The government-appointed commission's inquiry covered industrial schools, workhouses and orphanages run by the church from the 1930s to the 1990s.
It found "a substantial level of sexual abuse of boys in care that extended over a range from improper touching and fondling to rape with violence".
"Perpetrators of abuse were able to operate undetected for long periods at the core of institutions," the report said.
Sexual abuse has been revealed in numerous cases over the past decade and many priests and religious brothers have been imprisoned but the scale of the problem was yesterday regarded as freshly shocking.
At almost 3,000 pages, the report represents a monumental judgemention what has been exposed as a monumental problem. About 30,000 children were taken into the care of church-run institutions between the 1930s and 1990s, often for minor acts of truancy, petty theft or for being unmarried mothers. The inquiry identified more than 800 individuals as having suffered physical or sexual abuse in more than 200 mostly residential institutions.
Physical abuse was found to be commonplace in boys' schools, with "prolonged excessive beatings with implements intended to cause maximum pain occurring with the knowledge of staff management."
Sexual abuse was less common, taking place in secret rather than openly. Those who complained were often punished while the perpetrators were allowed to continue their activities, sometimes at a different school.