The Catholic Church and the UK Government Claim That Children Can Consent To Abuse
Catholic churches and clergy all over the world have been investigated and accused of sex scandals, including the Vatican. In fact, according to Jack and Diane Ruhl of the National Catholic Reporter, who decided to research this particular topic, since 1950, the Vatican has spent $3,994,797,060.10. That’s nearly $4 billion to keep the issue hush. That number may even be a bit conservative considering the amount of “under the table” dealings that have taken place which were uncovered in Spotlight investigations. Most cases were never reported nor were they taken to court, leaving their reality in the dark.
More recently in 2017, the UK government and the Catholic church have come under public scrutiny for claiming that victims of child sexual abuse “consented” to their rapes in order to avoid compensating the victims.
Legal Loophole Preventing Child Sex Victims From Being Compensated:
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) establishes which victims get compensated, and they do so by determining whether or not the victim gave consent, even if the victim is a child well under the legal age limit. The Telegraph reported last month that, according to CICA, “A victim can consent in fact even though in law they may be deemed not to have consented.”
That’s right, this government loophole can be used to claim that even though a child may be under the legal age limit, they can still provide consent.
To give you a better picture of how this works, one case that was explained by the charity Victim Support involved a 12-year-old girl who was led into the woods and sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old man while she was intoxicated.
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the man pled guilty to having sex with a minor, she still wasn’t compensated because she allegedly “gave consent” by “voluntarily” going into the woods with him.
“No child ever gives their ‘consent’ to being abused, and the increased use of this line of defense, although still quite rare, is worrying,” said Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England. “I have contacted the Ministry of Justice previously and again recently about this issue and the Government should look urgently at what can be done to tackle it.”
They also argued that she was able to give consent because she had recently had sex with someone her own age. That’s like saying, “If you consent to someone your own age, you consent to everyone. If you’ve consented in the past, you consent to everyone.” That is not an ethical argument, and we should not be teaching children that this irrational logic is okay.
A Freedom of Information Act request introduced by Victim Support indicated that since this loophole came into fruition in 2012, a total of 693 cases in which child sexual abuse victims came forward were denied compensation by the CICA. Though many of these cases involved children who were 16, some of the victims were much younger.
So, Where Does the Catholic Church Fit Into This?
As it turns out, this loophole most often benefits private schools, religious groups, and the local authorities. For example, lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark explained to one of the sexual abuse victims that his rape “actually occurred in the context of a consensual relationship (albeit one the Claimant in retrospect now appears to regret).” Although this particular case was actually settled to the tune of £80,000, the victim stated that the defense was both insulting and highlighted the fact that he was below the legal age of consent. There’s a legal age limit for a reason, and it’s strange that this law is being bent through the use of another law.
Dino Nocivelli, a specialist child abuse solicitor at Bolt Burdon, explained on Kent Live: “It is time for the church to practice what they preach and to admit their failings, to take account of the damage this has caused to the lives of far too many children and lastly to apologize for the abuse.”
An important question we need to start asking ourselves and the government is: Why are people in authority positions let off the hook for violent crimes(not penalized or get light sentencing)? Sexual abuse and rape are not crimes that should go ignored, yet time and time again, higher-ups and government officials are excused from the law.