Witchcraft-based child abuse: Action plan launched

Witchcraft-based child abuse: Action plan launched

14 August 2012

The government has launched an action plan to tackle child abuse linked to witchcraft or religion in England.

High-profile cases include the murders of Kristy Bamu and Victoria Climbie but experts fear much more abuse is hidden.

The key aims are to raise awareness and set out “urgent practical steps to identify and protect children at risk”.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton said: “Child abuse is appalling and unacceptable wherever it occurs and whatever form it takes.

“Abuse linked to faith or belief in spirits, witchcraft or possession is a horrific crime, condemned by people of all cultures, communities and faiths – but there has been a ‘wall of silence’ around its scale and extent.

“There can never be a blind eye turned to violence or emotional abuse or even the smallest risk that religious beliefs will lead to young people being harmed.”

The government says that cases of adults inflicting physical violence or emotional harm on children they regard as witches or possessed by evil spirits occur across the world, often in sub-sects of major religions, such as Christianity….

Scotland Yard says it has conducted 83 investigations into cases of faith-based child abuse in the past decade including those of Victoria Climbie who was eight when she was murdered in 2000 and the headless torso of “Adam”, a five or six-year-old boy, which was found in the Thames in 2001.

Ministers are concerned that although the investigations number just a few dozen, other abuse is going on, “under-reported and misunderstood”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19248144

Paedophile priests still play active church role – England and Wales

Shanley clergy abuse recovered memory case
http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/shanley-recovered-memory-case/

- Channel 4 News report finds many of the Catholic clergy jailed in England and Wales remain in the priesthood – Riazat Butt The Guardian, 15 September 2010  More than half of the Catholic clergy jailed for paedophile activity in England and Wales remain in the priesthood – with several receiving financial support from church authorities, raising serious questions about depth of church commitment to child protection and overshadowing the start of the papal visit. There are also claims the church has breached guidelines it agreed to in 2001 by not punishing offenders appropriately and that it has even relaxed some of the rules on how to treat them….at least 14 of the 22 priests who have served a year or more behind bars are still members of the clergy and 10 of these appear in the most recent edition of the Catholic Directory, the official yearbook of the church. Only eight of the 22 men have been dismissed from their positions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/paedophile-priests-active-church-role

2011 Ritual Abuse Conference, Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuses

articles:
Church sex abuse victims call on Pope to take action
The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuses
Ex-bishop in Belgian abuse scandal goes to hiding
http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

A conference to help survivors of severe child abuse (ritual abuse) and torture will be held on August 5  – 7, 2011, between 8 – 5 PM Saturday and Sunday at the DoubleTree Hotel near Bradley International Airport, 16 Ella Grasso Turnpike, Windsor Locks, CT 06096 (between Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA).  This conference will help educate survivors of this abuse and their helpers.  Pre-registration is preferred.  For information write  S.M.A.R.T., P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 E-mail: smartnews@aol.com, conference information is at:  http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

Church sex abuse victims call on Pope to take action  11 September 2010 Abuse survivors want to pass their testimonies to the Pope Campaigners who say they were sexually abused by Catholic priests as children have demanded “action not words” from the Pope. They plan to compile messages to the Pope in a book to give to him during his visit to Scotland and England. The campaigners want a statutory inquiry into clergy sex abuse, pastoral care and funding to support victims. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference said the church in England and Wales has put in place measures to protect children. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11267301

The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuses by Geoffrey Robertson Terry Eagleton welcomes a coolly devastating inquiry into the Vatican’s handling of child abuse Terry Eagleton The Guardian, Saturday 11 September 2010 The first child sex scandal in the Catholic church took place in AD153, long before there was a “gay culture” or Jewish journalists for bishops to blame it on. By the 1960s, the problem had become so dire that a cleric responsible for the care of “erring” priests wrote to the Vatican suggesting that it acquire a Caribbean island to put them on. What has made a bad situation worse, as the eminent QC Geoffrey Robertson argues in this coolly devastating inquiry, is canon law – the church’s own arcane, highly secretive legal system, which deals with alleged child abusers in a dismayingly mild manner rather than handing them over to the police. Its “penalties” for raping children include such draconian measures as warnings, rebukes, extra prayers, counselling and a few months on retreat. It is even possible to interpret canon law as claiming that a valid defence for paedophile offences is paedophilia. Since child abusers are supposedly incapable of controlling their sexual urges, this can be used in their defence. It is rather like pleading not guilty to stealing from Tesco’s on the grounds that one is a shoplifter. One blindingly simple reason for the huge amount of child abuse in the Catholic church (on one estimate, up to 9% of clerics are implicated) is that the perpetrators know they will almost certainly get away with it. For almost a quarter of a century, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is now Pope, was in supreme command of this parallel system of justice – a system deliberately hidden from the public, police and parliaments and run, so Robertson maintains, in defiance of international law.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/11/pope-vatican-abuse-geoffrey-robertson

Ex-bishop in Belgian abuse scandal goes to hiding   By RAF CASERT  Associated Press Writer Sep 11, 2010  BRUSSELS (AP) — The former Belgian bishop who resigned in April after admitting he sexually abused a nephew for years said Friday he would go into hiding to assess his future, despite calls for him to leave the church immediately. Roger Vangheluwe said in a statement he would immediately leave an abbey in his bishopry of Bruges, where he has been staying since his April 23 resignation. His bishopry has urged him to seek another place to live, and several victims of sexual abuse by clergy as well as a prominent senator have called on him to leave the church as an institution. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHURCH_ABUSE_BELGIUM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-11-08-29-55