AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 18, 2013
A MAN who was sexually abused by three members of a Catholic religious order while at school says the experience of going through the church’s Towards Healing program for dealing with such claims was like being abused again.
The victim, who cannot be named, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that he eventually received $80,000 in compensation from the Marist Brothers after “an aggressive and destructive” meeting in March 2010.
“The mediation that day made me feel quite dirty and filthy,” the victim told the commission.
“From 1976 to 1981, I was sexually abused; there was horrendous physical abuse and there was control by angry, cruel men who ruled my life.
“I put my trust back in them for Towards Healing and … I just felt the same angry, cruel men had done the same thing to me 35 years later. It’s the same abuse.”
After contacting the Marist Brothers as an adult, the victim, who was an 11-year-old schoolboy when the abuse began, said he was initially told “the abuse was a long time ago and I should just get over it”.
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