Lisbon, Europe Brief News – A lay committee has been come into existence to discover the historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic church. The committee claimed to receive 214 complaints during the first month on duty.
The committee received most of the complaints from the people who were born between 1933 and 2006. They told the committee that they have been keeping psychological suffering a secret for years with them.
The committee said “This suffering is associated with the feeling of shame, fear, guilt and self-exclusion, reinforcing the idea of lives where the sensation of standing on the sidelines was always present”
The church officials claimed that about two years ago, the authorities had inspected around 12 complaints about the sexual abuse involving Portuguese priest since 2001. The investigators failed to find significant amount of evidences so they had to drop off most the sexual abuse cases in the end.
Committee to trackdown culprit
The committee consists of six members in total including a psychiatrist, a former supreme court judge and social worker. They’ve Promised to keep the name anonymous to whoever comes forward and tell what they have seen or experienced.
The committee has started working from January 1. And it will report at the Portuguese bishop’s conference at the end of the year.
They told that it’s their actual duty is to study what child sex abuse has occurred rather than launching a formal investigations.
The committee said many of the complaints that have been received over the month indicate that there is a higher possibility that other childrens have been victims of the same abuser. The committee used an online system to receive witness statements
They even asked alleged victims to fill up a form which was available on the committee’s website. The committee added that they have received most of the complaints
across the country as some people went on to live in the United Kingdom, Unitedstates , Canada and some other countries. As the committee collected most of the statements using online
platform, the committee is ready to put up extra efforts to reach out to the people who live in the less developed areas and lack the use of technology.
