Child abuse symbol © Patrick Pleul
Priests beating children with crucifixes: this is what happened in Scottish religious homes – in thousands of cases, according to a recent report. The Nazareth Sisters, who run the orphanages, responded with an apology.
The Scottish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has ied a report on incidents in Catholic children's homes. According to the report, thousands of children placed in orphanages run by Nazareth Sisters in Scotland were victims of mistreatment, humiliation and, in some cases, sexual abuse "of the most shameful kind," as British media (Friday) quoted from the report.
For many children, the Catholic order's four homes in Aberdeen, Cardonald, Lasswade and Kilmarnock were "places of fear" where they were "physically abused and emotionally degraded with impunity," the head of the commission of inquiry, Anne Smith, said.
Children regularly beaten with crucifixes
The commission had heard nearly a month of reports from former orphans of the homes late last year, relating to incidents from 1933 to 1984. The 140-page report described how children were "regularly beaten with belts, sticks, broomsticks and crucifixes" and bedwetters were bathed in ice water or made to wear their wet sheets. Likewise, they said, children were forced to eat, even if it resulted in vomiting.
The Nazareth Sisters responded to the report with a statement. In it, they apologized "wholeheartedly and unreservedly" to all the children who experienced this suffering. There was an awareness of his "failures toward the children of that time" and also that "no apology can make up for those childhood experiences," the statement continued.
Abuse in England and Wales
The Inquiry into Child Abuse in England and Wales (IICSA) on Thursday unveiled an interim report on abuse cases in religious institutions, based on testimony from more than 180 abuse victims. According to media reports (Friday), the report is a "shocking testimony" of how "children were silenced".
More than half of the respondents stated that they kept the abuse to themselves out of shame (37 percent) or because of feelings of guilt (18 percent) at the time of the incidents. In addition, abuse victims of non-religious institutions are much more likely to report abuse (69 percent) than victims whose abuse occurred in a religious context (54 percent), the report continues.
Victims' feelings of shame and guilt
One-fifth of those surveyed also said that the abuse had led to a continuing loss of faith among them. People of various faiths and denominations were interviewed about incidents from 1940 to 2010.
According to the lead researcher of the investigative report, Sophia King, in addition to feelings of shame and guilt, the power and authority attributed to the perpetrators were the "greatest barriers" to disclosure of the acts by the victims.