BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
THE SHOCKING testimonies of 2,300 victim-survivors of childhood physical, psychological and sexual abuse representing 200,000 children that suffered in government care centers and church orphanages and institutions over the past 70 years have just been released in a New Zealand report that took six years to compile.
The investigative report, Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, discovered that more than 200,000 vulnerable people, most of them minors from impoverished communities and indigenous Maori and Pacific Island people living in New Zealand, were taken into institutional care by government and religious institutions and there they were abused and suffered torture, rape and sexual assault.
The heads of schools, institutions, bishops and civil authorities denied all reports of abuse and covered up the crimes for years by transferring abusers to other jobs, schools and parishes. The report found that there was more sexual abuse of children in church-based institutions rather than state care homes.
The foster care system was worse than the institutions, the report says. Foster homes had higher rates of child sexual abuse than in the faith-based or government institutions, the investigation found.
Few of the people responsible, torturers and sex offenders, were ever brought to justice because the victims were not believed or were ignored. The church and civil institutions protected the child abusers. They covered up evil crimes against children.
In many churches, the Philippines included, cover up and denial of child abuse is the greater crime of all.
In the Philippines, a Unicef report says one in every four children experience child abuse or neglect in their short lifetime.
The Philippines is the hub of online child sexual abuse, too. According to Cameleon Philippines, about 7,000,000 children are sexually abused every year in the Philippines.
More than 70 percent of sexually abused children are between 10 and 18 years old. Among those victims, 20 percent are under 6 years old.
Is this the way the Philippines wants to be seen and judged by the international community?
New Zealand is suffering severe damage to its reputation by the revelations of church and civil systematic child abuse. That is just the tip of the iceberg of abuse that goes on in society, in homes and also in institutions like the church and schools and unsupervised care homes. It is child abuse that is unseen and unheard.
The Philippine Catholic Church is campaigning to block a law allowing divorce but is silent about the pandemic of child abuse in the church among priests, religious and lay people. New Zealand and other churches have faced up to the shame and clerical crimes against vulnerable children.
Besides the few Filipino brave bishops and priests that fight for human rights, most bishops and priests are silent. Is this the silence of consent or indifference? (To be continued)/PN
