AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Christopher Knaus
Sunday 5 February 2017
Victims’ groups have warned that data on reports of child sexual abuse within the Catholic church, while shocking, still underestimates the scale of abuse.
On Monday the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse released damning statistics on the number of allegations of sexual predation the church was aware of.
Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, said between January 1980 and February 2015 4,444 people made allegations of sexual abuse to 93 church authorities. On average the gap between the alleged abuse and the report was 33 years.
“A total of 1,880 alleged perpetrators were identified in claims,” Furness said. “Over 500 unknown people were identified as alleged perpetrators.”
Bernard Barrett, a researcher with Broken Rites, a website documenting Catholic abuse, said the figures were only indicative of the minimal number of perpetrators.
“It’s more than that. At least that many were offenders, that’s the very least,” Barrett told Guardian Australia. “The numbers are very seductive; people think that it’s an exact figure when, in reality, it’s indicative.
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