Austrian Church Panel Awards $10.5m to Abuse Victims

The News
April 18, 2012

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-103537-Austrian-Church-panel-awards-$105m-to-abuse-victims

VIENNA: A commission investigating sexual and physical abuse in Austrian Catholic institutions announced on Tuesday it had so far allocated eight million euros ($10.5 million) in damages to the victims.

Up until April 3, a total 1,244 complaints were filed with the commission and 702 cases resolved, commission president Waltraud Klasnic told a press conference. Of these, less than two dozen were rejected, she said, adding she hoped all cases would be concluded before the end of the year. Apart from financial damages -- to be paid from a compensation fund set up by the Austrian Catholic Church -- the commission also awarded over 23,000 hours of therapy to abuse victims.

The great majority -- over 75 per cent -- of claimants were men, with half suffering abuse between the ages of 10 and 13, and a further 31 per cent at a younger age. On average, the abuse went on for four years, and two thirds of cases involved sexual abuse, the commission said. In about 40 per cent of cases, the abuse dated back to the 1960s, it also found.

"We have broken through the wall of silence," Klasnic said. The commission was set up in March 2010 by Vienna's archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, following an avalanche of allegations of sexual abuse by clergy members, but insists it has an independent mandate to investigate claims.