GERMANY
The Canary
JULY 18TH, 2017 Ed Sykes ED SYKES
A new child abuse report has come out in Germany. And it reveals shocking details of past sexual assault by members of the Catholic church. It also serves as another reminder that justice for abuse victims is still a long way off.
When schools become a “prison” of “fear, violence and hopelessness”
The report found there were at least 67 cases of sexual abuse over six decades at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir boarding schools in southern Germany. There were also 500 cases of physical abuse. Nine of the 49 members of the Catholic church involved in the scandal were perpetrators of sexual abuse.
The lawyer who investigated the abuse, Ulrich Weber, explained how there had been a “culture of silence”. And he said the head of the choir from 1964 to 1994, Georg Ratzinger, could take part of the blame for “looking the other way and failing to intervene”. Ratzinger is the elder brother of former Pope Benedict XVI. He has denied knowing about the abuse.
Victims from between 1945 and the early 1990s said the schools were like “a prison, hell and a concentration camp”; and they described the experience as “the worst time of their lives, characterised by fear, violence and hopelessness”.
Because of the time that’s passed since the abuses, the alleged perpetrators are unlikely to face criminal charges.
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