Dutch Catholic church sexual abuse bill soars as hotline closes down

AMSTERDAM (Netherlands)
DutchNews.nl

December 18, 2017

In total, 3,712 people have reported being victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic church to a special hotline set up in 2010 and the cost of dealing with the eight-year scandal could be as much as €60m.

Of all the reported cases to the hotline, 2,062 became official complaints and 1,002 cases were declared justified. Several hundred were not accepted because of a lack of supporting evidence, the final report from hotline officials said.

In 941 cases, the victims were given financial compensation, taking total payouts to €28.6m. Sixty-five victims who went through the most serious forms of abuse were given the maximum payout of €100,000.

According to the NRC newspaper, the real bill to the Catholic church is far higher. It says 403 victims reached secret deals with the church authorities, and received an estimated €12.8m in compensation.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.