1. Introduction
1. Many countries, including Council of Europe member
and observer states, have recently been faced with accounts of sexual,
physical and emotional child abuse occurring within institutions,
including residential facilities, such as boarding schools or children’s
homes, day schools and other institutional settings, such as youth
associations. With a view to the topicality of the issue, the rapporteur
would like to focus on child abuse in institutions, although she
is well aware of the fact that most abuse cases take place in a
wider family context (see paragraph 4 below). Through her report,
she intends to urge member states of the Council of Europe and all
other stakeholders concerned to deal with this crucial issue with
a sense of urgency, overcoming remaining obstacles when it comes
to investigating facts, to openly debating causes and consequences
of child abuse, to giving full protection and justice to victims
and to preventing new occurrences. Her objective is not to exhaustively
unveil cases of child abuse through extensive data collection, neither
is it to pinpoint institutions that are “guilty” of child abuse.
The major aim of this report is to identify characteristics and
common traits of institutions which may facilitate the abuse of
children placed in their care.
2. Child abuse in the institutional context is not a recent phenomenon,
but can be traced back to the more or less distant past. The current
report refers exclusively to the cases that have been detected recently
and that date back (for the earliest) to the 1950s. It is based
on official data and reports wherever possible, but – as many of
them are still under way – also media reports on child abuse cases
that have been uncovered recently. However, the rapporteur is aware
of the sensitivity and complexity of the issue, and will attempt
to avoid any undue generalisation based on stereotypes. In order
to follow a balanced approach from the outset, the rapporteur had
suggested the involvement of experts from all spheres of society.
Thus, at its meeting on 22 June 2010, the Social, Health and Family
Affairs Committee held a hearing during which were heard: representatives
of governmental bodies investigating child abuse in institutions
(Ireland and Germany), of the Holy See and of the sector of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs). Their contributions were most helpful in drafting
the current report.
3. It will be the responsibility of each member state to define
national action plans and to decide how to involve all partners
concerned in the relevant national processes and enquiries. At Council
of Europe level, the Convention on the Protection of Children against
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201), which came
into force on 1 July 2010, represents an excellent basis for defining
common standards as regards this specific context of child abuse.
Recommendation Rec(2005)5 of the Committee of Ministers on the rights
of children living in residential institutions recognises children’s
right “to respect for the child’s human dignity and physical integrity;
in particular, the right to conditions of human and non-degrading
treatment and a non-violent upbringing, including the protection
against corporal punishment and all forms of abuse”. In its Recommendation
1698 (2005) on the rights of children in institutions: follow-up
to Recommendation 1601 (2003), the Assembly insists on the fact
that the issue of children living in institutions is common to all
member states of the Council of Europe and that none of them can
claim to be beyond criticism in this field.
4. Child abuse happens in many contexts and children are increasingly
threatened by new forms of violence and exploitation such as child
pornography, mostly on the Internet, and child prostitution, often
by international tourists in poorer countries. However, convinced
that focused measures require a focused view, the rapporteur clearly
restricts the current report to the particular issue of child abuse
in institutions. The issue of child abuse in institutions seems
to have been neglected for a long time or at least not been sufficiently debated
in public. This is certainly, amongst others, due to the fact that,
statistically speaking, most cases of child abuse (sexual, physical
and emotional) happen within the family or the extended personal
environment of the child: figures for most countries turn around
80% of abuse cases happening in this context.
Nevertheless, there is rising awareness
of the fact that, in past decades, many children have been victims
of abuse, mistreatment, or situations where adults have at least
“trespassed the limits” of their integrity within institutions which
are awarded full trust by children, their families and society in
general.
5. The rapporteur strongly welcomes the increasing attention
paid to the issue, not least thanks to the intervention of European
media, and invites member states and other stakeholders to take
a closer look at three main questions: (1) how to accord full justice
to victims who are adults today, but have been abused as children
or adolescents and, for various reasons, have only recently been
able to make public what happened to them and accuse the perpetrators;
(2) how to deal with more recent cases of child abuse, notably with
regard to the criminal prosecution of perpetrators and support given
to victims; (3) how to reinforce existing internal and external
oversight mechanisms allowing the identification of potential abuse
situations and to prevent new offences in the future. As a substantial
contribution to ongoing debates, the present report intends to give preliminary
replies to these questions without claiming to deal with them in
an exhaustive manner.
6. In this report, the rapporteur takes a closer look at national
situations: first of Ireland, where a major and very well-researched
report on the issue has already been concluded and presented to
the public in 2009. She then notably refers to recently uncovered
cases and the ensuing debates in Germany, her own country, where she
is herself a member of the several round tables dealing with the
abuse of children and adolescents in various contexts. She finally
gives individual examples from other European countries where debates
are ongoing. In this respect, she would like to thank her colleagues
who have been willing to provide specific national information.
The
rapporteur points out that her reflections are notably based on
information reported from Germany and other western European countries.
The report does not look into the situation of children in southern
or eastern European countries that have been known for some time,
such as those of children neglected in orphanages. Nevertheless,
recommendations made here are addressed to all Council of Europe member
states and any further exchange on the issue at European level should
also involve eastern and southern European countries.
2. Recent national experiences and first
responses
7. The problem of child abuse in institutions certainly
concerns all Council of Europe member states to a greater or lesser
extent and with specific expressions of the problem. In some countries,
however, abuse cases in institutions, notably boarding schools and
child care homes, were recently uncovered more extensively and have
attracted high media attention; sometimes debates in one country
have even stimulated the same dynamic in others. Although there
are certain similarities between abuse cases having occurred in
different countries, the rapporteur is aware that the respective
national and institutional context, as well as time periods when
abuse occurred, have to be taken into account when judging incidences.
Nevertheless, she will attempt to deduce overall characteristics
of child abuse in institutions from the examples known today, so
as to identify appropriate lines of action as part of future prevention
strategies. It may be recalled that her aim is not to accuse one
type of institution more than others, but to identify the characteristics
of institutions that facilitate the abuse of children and adolescents
and which various institutions have in common.
2.1. National experience in the past: the case of Ireland
8. Following investigations that took place under the
“Ferns report” presented in 2005
and the
“Murphy report” presented at the end of 2009,
the results of the most comprehensive
investigation on the issue undertaken under the “Ryan report” were
presented in May 2009 after almost ten years of work of the state-appointed
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
The report is based in part on old
church records of unreported abuse cases and in part on the anonymous
testimony of former students from a variety of 216 mostly church-run
institutions, set up to tend to neglected, orphaned or abandoned
children (reformatories, hospitals, orphanages, children’s homes,
industrial schools). According to the report, some 30 000 children were
sent to such institutions over the period of six decades examined
between 1936 and 2009.
9. The Confidential Committee set up for the purpose of the inquiry
heard evidence from 1 090 men and women who reported having been
systematically abused physically, sexually and emotionally, and
neglected by religious and lay adults, mostly between 1936 and 1970.
Sexual abuse as well as non-contact sexual abuse (voyeurism) were
reported by approximately half of all the Confidential Committee
witnesses in both isolated assaults and on a regular basis over
long periods of time. Children were abused by religious and lay
staff in the schools and institutions, by co-residents and others,
including professionals, both within and outside the institution.
Most of the victims, notably of serial abusers, were young boys,
as sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ institutions but not in those
for girls. More than 90% of witnesses reported having been physically
abused while in schools or out-of-home care. Emotional abuse was
reported in the form of lack of attachment and affection, loss of
identity, deprivation of family contact, humiliation, constant criticism,
personal denigration, exposure to fear and the threat of harm. Children
with learning disabilities, physical and sensory impairments and
children who had no family contact were found to be especially vulnerable
in institutional settings. Witnesses reported that the abuse experienced
in childhood had an enduring impact on their lives. The Ryan report
names the schools and institutions concerned, but keeps secret the
names of alleged abusers, unless they have already been convicted.
10. Other than the situation of the children themselves as described
by the numerous victims, the Ryan report looked into the way in
which uncovered abuse cases were dealt with by the public authorities
at given times. It concluded that often complaints were not handled
properly and that in some cases steps were taken to avoid scandal
and publicity. The safety of children was apparently not a priority
at any time during the relevant period. The Department of Education,
in charge of the inspection of most of the institutions concerned, came
in for harsh criticism in the report, which calls the government
agency “deferential and submissive” toward the religious orders
that ran the institutions. Its inspection system “was fundamentally
flawed and incapable of being effective”.
Even complaints that were filed
by parents and others made to the department were not properly investigated.
Institutions themselves were characterised by a certain “culture
of silence” and sexual abuse was seldom brought to the attention
of the Department of Education by the religious authorities. When
confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, their response in many
cases was to transfer the offenders to another location where, in
many instances, they were free to abuse again.
11. Beyond these main characteristics of abuse situations, the
Ryan report explicitly lists the factors facilitating their occurrence,
such as the mandatory placement of children (who could not simply
leave the institution) or the lack of efficient control mechanisms.
Furthermore, the capital and financial commitment made by the religious
congregations seemed to be a major factor in prolonging the prevailing
system of institutional care of children. It also explains the typical
modus operandi of abusers who generally
implicated the children into the abuse, made them feel responsible
and guilty and even suggested that they were “accomplices” to the act.
Thus, in many cases, children and abusers were found to jointly
cover up the offence. Female victims in particular, although there
were fewer of them, described being told they were responsible for
the sexual abuse they experienced, by both their abusers and those
to whom they disclosed abuse. As an important lesson to be learned,
Ms Marian Shanley, one of the seven commissioners involved in the
preparation of the Ryan report, pointed out the utmost importance
of an education teaching children and adolescents that they must
never accept abuse or feel guilty when it occurs.
12. The rapporteur is aware that the Irish example is a very specific
one, not least due to the preponderant role played by the Catholic
Church in the field of child care institutions in that country.
What happened in Ireland can certainly not be directly compared
to other national situations and one should refrain from assuming
that child abuse in Catholic institutions has taken place to the
same extent in other countries. However, the Irish example seems
useful to draw upon when it comes to lessons to be learned, notably
concerning the structural shortcomings of institutions facilitating
child abuse, but also the way of dealing with abuse and investigating
it once it has happened. For this purpose, the Ryan report concludes
with a full list of recommendations that member states could use
as a reference when dealing with the issue and that the rapporteur
will also draw upon when it comes to her own recommendations (see
chapter 4 below).
2.2. More recently uncovered cases of child abuse
13. As far as Germany is concerned, at the end of January
2010, numerous cases of systematic abuse of children, which seem
to have notably occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, were reported
from the Canisius Kolleg, a private Jesuit high school in Berlin.
These reports were followed by abuse allegations directed at other schools
run by the Catholic Church or secular organisations. The cases which
received the highest media attention were those unveiled at the
Benedictine Abbey of Ettal (Bavaria), the private Odenwaldschule
(Hesse) and within some of the renowned boys’ choirs in Germany
(Regensburger Domspatzen, Limburger Domsingknaben). Physical abuse
was reported from an institution named Educon belonging to the foundation Graf-Recke-Stiftung
in Düsseldorf, where autistic children were alleged to have been
abused and mistreated over many years.
14. Following these reports, generally based on allegations presented
by former pupils, the issue has been taken very seriously by the
institutions concerned. The Abbey of Ettal, for example, immediately
appointed a special investigator, who presented an interim report
in March 2010. His investigations proved that about 100 children
enrolled in the abbey had been massively abused sexually, physically
and emotionally for decades. The investigator further stated that
the “crimes committed … could not have happened if it had not been
for ill-guided solidarity on the part of other members of the abbey”
and that “by regular standards, each of the perpetrators would have
been sentenced to jail terms of several years (if cases had been
prosecuted within the statute of limitations)”.
15. At the beginning of 2009, the Round Table on Children in Residential
Care (
Runder Tisch Heimerziehung)
took up its work, after having been instituted by the German Parliament
(
Bundestag) with the aim of
investigating the abuse of children, both girls and boys, placed
in state and church-run children’s homes in the 1950s and the 1960s.
The first investigations of this round table have shown that out
of the 700 000 to 800 000 children living in children’s homes, many
were subjected to violence, emotional mistreatment and sometimes
sexual abuse, and, as they grew older, were forced to work hard
without payment in various places such as farms, laundries, sewing
rooms or even factories. The extent of the problem has become evident through
personal statements of numerous victims. It shows that Germany is
not facing a few single cases of abuse or an issue linked to the
educational spirit of the time, but a problem of systematic child
abuse to which children and adolescents “were delivered in rigid,
violent and factually and psychologically closed systems without
the possibility of getting away from them or … of complaining to
some instance”. In her intermediate statement, the Chairperson of
the Round Table, Ms Antje Vollmer, former Vice-President of the
Bundestag, also stated that there
was a “chain of responsibilities” from which no one involved at
the time can be absolved today.
16. Already in 2009, when the round table took up its work, the
representatives of the Catholic and Protestant Churches expressed
their regret for the events and showed strong willingness to contribute
to the investigations.
Along with the increasing number
of uncovered cases (18 out of 27 German Catholic dioceses were concerned
by allegations by April 2010),
the reactions to the offences unveiled
were reinforced in 2010: Germany’s Catholic Church has recently
announced its intention to revise its guidelines for dealing with
cases of sexual abuse, and its highest representative, Robert Zollitsch,
Archbishop of Freiburg im Breisgau and Chairman of the German Episcopal
Conference, apologised in the name of the Church in Germany to all
those who became victims of such crimes.
17. Very recently, in April 2010, the German Government set up
a new round table aimed at investigating the issue of sexual child
abuse more specifically (Runder Tisch
Sexueller Missbrauch). At the same time it appointed
Dr Christine Bergmann, former German Minister for Family Affairs
(1998-2002) and member of the aforementioned round table, as Special
Representative on Cases of Sexual Child Abuse (Unabhängige Beauftragte zur Aufarbeitung des
sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs). Dr Bergmann made a substantial contribution
to the expert hearing organised by the Social, Health and Family
Affairs Committee on 22 June 2010 by recalling, amongst others,
that the topic of child abuse in institutions is not a new one in
Germany either. However, according to her own experience, the problem
cannot be controlled through new regulations only, as legislative
measures do not automatically lead to the action required at various
levels. In her function as special representative she was expected
to be a neutral interlocutor for child victims of all kinds and
to contribute to the formulation of recommendations through research
by her secretariat.
18. The case of Germany illustrates very well that the issue is
not one of institutions related to the Catholic Church alone but
concerns many other institutions, including secular ones.
Thus, a number of cases have recently
been uncovered within the Protestant Church of Germany. A judo trainer
in Bavaria has recently been condemned to a prison sentence of six
years and nine months for the abuse of children and youngsters in
211 cases.
As recently as July 2010, three
German adolescents aged between 13 and 16 admitted having sexually
abused younger children in a holiday camp on the Dutch island of
Ameland. Investigations are under way and the prosecutor suspects
that up to 13 youngsters could be amongst the offenders. The 39
adults in charge of the group of 170 children are suspected of having
failed to assist the children concerned or threatened despite the
fact that some children had solicited their help during the stay;
it is currently being investigated whether they were all sufficiently
qualified for their task or took the latter seriously enough.
Finally, as far as the particular
situation of Germany is concerned, the country also needs to investigate
further into cases of child abuse that took place in out-of-home
child care institutions in the former German Democratic Republic,
regarding which a number of victims have spoken up today and could
be amongst those claiming some kind of compensation.
19. One of the main questions to be answered by all institutions
is what follow-up is given to unveiled facts and if legal procedures
are consistently engaged against offenders – which has not always
been the case in the past. In general, critical voices have been
raised in Germany with regard to the fact that there has been knowledge
about the problem of child abuse in institutions, and even particular
institutions, where it occurred, for many years. Some even wondered
whether former abuse cases had been neglected because they mainly concerned
children in out-of-home placement, often coming from disadvantaged
social classes, whilst political attention increases today as privileged
schools and pupils from wealthier families are known to be concerned.
20. Apart from Germany, the issue of child abuse in institutions
is also currently receiving attention in other European countries:
In Austria, for example, some sexual abuse cases in Catholic institutions
dating back to the 1970s and 1980s were uncovered in March 2010.
The respective situations are being investigated more closely with
regard to legal action to be taken in order to accord full justice
to the – today adult – victims.
The current approach to the issue
followed by the Austrian Government includes a round table of 30
experts who gathered in spring 2010 to carry out preliminary investigations.
In the context of the national debate, this round table has been
generally welcomed but was immediately criticised by some experts
who said that it only dealt with prevention of future cases, not
with the traumatic situation of victims of past abuse. According
to the national federation for psychotherapy, about 700 suspected
cases have been registered. The organisation insisted on the importance
of an independent body that victims can turn to and where they can
be professionally accompanied by experts in order to avoid “re-traumatisation”.
Some experts asked that sufficient resources be made available for
measures in favour of victims of past decades.
21. The example of Belgium shows that state and church authorities
should closely collaborate when it comes to investigating the issue.
In this country, police officers recently raided the National Church
Archives in order to confiscate the 475 case files compiled by the
investigation commission set up by the Roman Catholic Church of
Belgium.
The police also searched the home and
office of Cardinal Gotfried Daneels who had stepped down as the
Primate of Belgium in January 2010, and detained members and staff
of the Belgium bishops’ conference in June 2010.
The polemics that followed
these incidents raise questions about the effectiveness of such
proceedings with regard to the overall aim of uncovering the truth
and according justice to victims who have been suffering and traumatised
for long periods of their lives. According to the most recent information,
the Belgian judiciary has given instructions to hand back the files
seized on 24 June last, thus responding to the protest of the archbishopric.
Despite this turbulence, the Commission
for the Treatment of Complaints of Sexual Abuse in a Pastoral Relation
(January-June 2010), mandated to investigate the nature and extent
of child abuse occurring in the context of the church, was able
to present its final report on 10 September 2010.
22. The issue was also recently more openly addressed in Italy
by state and church institutions. The leader of the Italian bishops
conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, recently acknowledged that
it was “possible” that bishops in Italy had covered up abuse, whilst
his deputy said that in the past decade 100 Italian priests had faced
church trials in connection with the sexual abuse of minors. The
Vatican’s own internal prosecutor, Msgr Charles J. Scicluna, who
oversees abuse cases for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, said he was worried about “a certain culture of silence”
in Italy. At the same time, he summarised the legal situation in
Italy: as Italian law did not require mandatory reporting of sexual
abuse, bishops are not necessarily required to notify the civil
authorities. The Catholic Church in Italy therefore does not force
bishops to denounce their own priests, but encourages them to contact
the victims and invite them to denounce the priests by whom they
have been abused.
23. By March 2010, more than 200 suspected victims of child abuse
in institutions of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands had placed
complaints with relevant authorities and support organisations.
According to the church-related support organisation “Hulp &
Recht” (Help and Justice), there have been more than 1 100 references
to cases of sexual abuse.
The first cases uncovered occurred
in the 1950s and 1960s, many of them in schools which closed by
the 1970s, so that many criminal offences will have exceeded the
statute of limitation. Alongside priests, for the first time nuns
are also accused of having sexually abused children. Investigations
are currently under way, and are said to have been stimulated and
facilitated by the debate initiated in Germany just before.
The Catholic Church has responded
to allegations by setting up an independent committee of investigation
under the former minister and the former mayor of The Hague, Wim Deetman.
In April 2010, the outgoing ministers
André Rouvoet (youth and family) and Ernst Hirsch Ballin (justice)
announced that an investigation would be held into whether children
were abused in certain public institutions in the second half of
the 20th century.
24. At the time when the present report was being finalised, a
court in Portugal delivered its verdict in a major child sex abuse
trial: six Portuguese men were sentenced after having been found
guilty of sexual abuse (or aiding and abetting such abuse) at a
state-run children’s home, the Casa Pia. The convicted men – including a
former television presenter, a former ambassador, a former Casa
Pia governor, two doctors, one lawyer and a driver of the Casa Pia
– had apparently abused 32 victims under the age of majority since
the mid-1970s through a paedophile ring choosing its victims amongst
the 4 000 needy children of the Casa Pia, but the offences had only
been uncovered in 2002. During the long judicial process, more than
800 witnesses were heard by the court, which led to harsh criticism
of the Portuguese legal system as being very formal and facilitating
every attempt by the defence to delay the procedure.
25. A recently published report of the Swedish Ombudsman for Children
indicates that the phenomenon is relatively widespread in Europe.
The recent report called “I’m sorry”
analyses the situation of four detention centres for young offenders,
themselves authors of sexual aggression or encountering psychological difficulties.
It notably mentions cases of mistreatment that occurred in these
centres in the 1940s and 1950s, and compares the rather repressive
approach in Sweden (including methods like isolation and body checks) to
the Norwegian approach, which is focused on enhancing the youngsters’
situation during their stay, with a view to suggesting amendments
to the Swedish legislation on the detention of minors.
2.3. Responses of various authorities and institutions
26. The rapporteur welcomes the fact that practically
all stakeholders concerned have immediately reacted to the abuse
cases uncovered and taken first steps to review safeguarding systems
in place, as one can see from national examples described above.
Following the example of Ireland in the past decade, investigations have
now been launched in several member states concerned by recently
uncovered abuse cases, either by the state or institutions concerned
(Catholic Church, private institutions, etc.) or by both. Several
countries are currently investigating the legislative, administrative
and political action to be taken in order to reinforce protection
against child abuse in the future. Various reactions at different
hierarchical levels have come from the Catholic Church, given that
many of the recently uncovered cases of abuse concerned Catholic
institutions and that numerous allegations have been made regarding
attempts by church institutions to cover up abuse committed by members
of the clergy. Pope Benedict XVI himself has addressed the issue
in depth in his recent “Letter to the Catholics of Ireland” of 19
March 2010, in which he addresses the “shame and remorse of the Catholic
Church”.
27. In recent debates, church representatives and experts on church
matters have regularly emphasised that the problem of child abuse
in institutions is not one of Catholic establishments only, and
that the status of celibacy of Catholic priests is not a major factor.
According to Msgr Charles J. Scicluna, “Promoter of Justice” of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose task it is
to investigate what are known as
delicta graviora (including
the abuse of minors by a cleric) as regards priests accused of paedophilia,
in “about 60% of the cases chiefly involved sexual attraction towards
adolescents of the same sex, another 30% involved heterosexual relations,
and the remaining 10% were cases of paedophilia in the true sense
of the term”.
28. The rapporteur would like to recall that the major issue to
be addressed by society is that of minors being abused in institutions
(including children and adolescents) and that within closed institutional
systems, where children are bound to respect the authority of their
teachers, tutors, carers, etc., it is extremely difficult to distinguish
sexual relations between adults and minors that are based on mutual
consent from those which are not. This is why no sexual relations
between adults and minors in institutions should be allowed at all,
whether heterosexual or homosexual. One of the first steps to be
taken when it comes to addressing the issue at national level will
certainly be to agree on a common terminology and understanding
of the problem.
The rapporteur furthermore recognises
that the percentage of paedophiles working in the realm of the Catholic Church
is often exaggerated, and that people having subscribed to the religious
principle of celibacy, like Catholic priests, are often too rapidly
suspected of problematic or even criminal sexual behaviour. Nevertheless,
she would like to recall that, in any institutional context, men
with paedophile preferences are known to choose professions where
they can have as much contact with children as possible.
29. Notably at national, and at more local level as well, the
Catholic Church is presented with allegations and suspicions of
covering up and protecting members of their clergy,
where priests having committed child abuse
were simply transferred to other dioceses or functions where they
could commit similar crimes. Msgr Charles J. Scicluna, “Promotor
of Justice” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently
indirectly confirmed such an approach of the Catholic Church to
the issue of child abuse by stating that only in about 20% of cases
concerning priests suspected of paedophilia, have penal or administrative
processes taken place in the diocese in question. In a further 60%
of cases, mainly due to the advanced age of the accused priests, only
disciplinary measures have been taken against them, leading to them
being forbidden to celebrate mass in public or to the obligation
to retire. In the 20% of worst cases, based on watertight evidence,
the Pope himself has taken the responsibility to defrock priests
from their religious status and functions.
Despite an understanding for Catholic
institutions with regard to their particular function and sensitive
position in our societies, the rapporteur recalls that church institutions
have to respect and should rigorously apply the same national legislation
as all other public and private organisations.
30. Church representatives and experts have stated on several
occasions that any case that has not been treated with utmost transparency
in past years must be seen as a misinterpretation of the church
rules in force. According to church experts and representatives,
canon law never condoned the mismanagement and cover-ups by some
bishops, these were failures to apply canon law
and “norms on sexual abuse have
never been understood as a ban on denouncing the crimes to the civil
authorities”.
Nevertheless, the Holy See very recently
revised its rules on sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy
in order to streamline Catholic Church procedures for dealing with
the issue. According to Reverend Federico Lombardi, the Vatican
Spokesman, the revisions signalled a commitment to tackling clergy
abuse with “rigour and transparency”. Amongst other new rules, the
statute of limitation for child abuse was extended from ten to twenty
years and there is now specific provision for more rapid procedures
in order to deal with urgent situations more effectively, for example
by giving the Pope the authority to defrock a priest without a formal
Vatican trial.
The revision of rules within the Catholic
Church seems to be a step in the right direction. However, some
experts consider that the new rules include only few substantive
changes to the church’s approach and only codify practices that
have been put in place in recent years.
Furthermore, the new rules do not,
for example, hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their
watch, nor do they require them to report sexual abuse to civil
authorities – though less formal “guidelines” issued earlier this
year encourage reporting if local law compels it.
31. Apart from the public and private stakeholders already mentioned,
various national and international NGOs are closely involved with
the issue of child abuse in general and abuse in institutions in
particular. Substantial work on the issue is, amongst others, done
by “Victim Support Europe”, a European federation of 26 national
associations from 21 countries who recently contributed to the ongoing
debate.
From
their point of view, the protection and support of victims still
needs to be strongly reinforced by various measures, including the
recognition of the victim and her or his suffering, the provision
of competent support services by public bodies or through networks
of NGOs to be mobilised, the rigorous prosecution of offenders as
well as the provision of adequate compensation.
32. The victims of both recently uncovered abuse and of cases
uncovered a long time after their occurrence need to be heard and
supported according to their specific needs. For the former, it
is essential that an end is put to the abuse and that they are accompanied
through relevant legal procedures. For the latter, the issue becomes
one of recognising and treating the abuse as a traumatic event which
would often have had a major impact on their personal development.
Even as adults, victims often have to deal with personal problems
with fear or incapacity of being physically close to another person,
incapacity of living in stable relationships. In cases where abuse
is uncovered many years later, victims experience a kind of “re-traumatisation”,
which may also represent a burden on the family. It is therefore
of utmost importance that the protection of victims takes into account
their direct social environment.
33. The main recommendations of victim support organisations with
regard to public action to be taken refer, amongst others, to the
development of clear guidelines for institutions (including the
obligation to report abuse cases to competent authorities), the
establishment of effective control mechanisms, the development of comprehensive
support services (including the possibility of talking about the
abuse, of being psychologically accompanied and of receiving support
from a solicitor), and the reinforcement of prevention strategies,
as well as further research done into the specific needs of victims.
34. The rapporteur is convinced that yet more committed efforts
will be required from all stakeholders concerned to accord full
justice to victims of past decades, to support children who have
become victims recently from a psychological point of view and in
judicial procedures, and to protect children from future abuse within
the institutional context. In order to join forces in favour of
children in institutions, different partners involved in investigation
and review processes should agree on common lines as regards the
definition of child abuse, the factors facilitating such offences
and the most transparent way of dealing with the issue in democratic
societies. The rapporteur is also convinced that the NGO sector,
already very active in the field of victim support services, should
be seen as a major partner, to be developed and supported by public
action and resources, and thus instrumentalised as a tool which
is, thanks to its decentralised structure and grass-roots initiatives,
very close to the victims and generally seen as a trusted interlocutor
by them.
3. Child abuse in institutions: a structural problem
concerning various types of institutions
35. Generally speaking, the risk of child abuse seems
to be higher in “closed” systems, from tight-knit families to boarding
schools and orphanages, independent of the institution in charge
of running the latter, as power and proximity generate similar behaviour
patterns which sometimes bring with them a greater risk of abuse.
While relationships marked by a certain degree of dependence can
be found in all institutions, some institutions are more exposed
to them, as recent national evidence has shown. This is also due
to the fact that some types of institutions (for example sports
associations) are “easier to leave” than others (for example, schools).
In
addition to these structural factors, children and adolescents generally
have a strong wish to be part of a group and be recognised by this
group, which they would often “idealise”. If a member of the group commits
an offence, their “ideal world” is destroyed and they fear to be
excluded, which often leads them to deny, to cover up or to justify
what happened. “Peer pressure” may therefore facilitate the occurrence
of child abuse or sometimes hamper its unveiling.
36. Recent debates in Council of Europe member states and at European
level, involving decision makers and experts, have shown that the
abuse of children’s trust within the institutional context may be
further facilitated by other factors. The hierarchical organisation
of certain educational institutions has in the past allowed internal
instructions on how to deal with cases of child abuse, aimed at
covering up embarrassing incidents. Today, an increasing awareness
of the problem of child abuse and readiness to openly debate it amongst
high level representatives of the institutions concerned could be
read as first signs that these hierarchies could also be used to
positively orient institutions concerned towards more transparent mechanisms.
37. Notably, certain religious institutions seem to facilitate
abuse situations, as they often function as hierarchical but independent
systems which may, to a certain extent, be outside the reach of
public oversight mechanisms. Moreover, the educational staff of
religious institutions are often granted particular trust by families,
which may in some cases leave them with greater latitude to abuse
this trust or give them more opportunity to approach their victims.
In recent debates, it has, however, been increasingly recognised
that child abuse in institutions is not a problem of the church
foremost, but that it is a problem for the linked religious institutions
as well. It is a structural problem existing in various institutions
and linked to their specific characteristics and their functioning.
It therefore needs to be jointly addressed by all stakeholders concerned by
child care and education in institutions in one way or another.
38. Furthermore, according to psychologists, the specific relationship
between offender and victim is not always sufficiently taken into
account; generally children have close emotional and social relationships
with the offender (father, brother, teacher, priest or trainer).
In abuse situations, they receive (positive) affection and (negative)
offence from the same person and are emotionally overstrained, which
makes them silent. Therefore, experts regularly recall that children
who are raised in homes where they lack love and protection may
be more sensitive to attention and love given to them by contact
persons outside of the family, and more exposed to potential abuse
of their trust.
This sometimes leads to the particularly
severe problem of children who may already have been victims of
child abuse in their own family, who are removed by the public authorities
to an institution for their protection, and are again subjected
to abuse in that institution.
39. Some experts also believe that current prevention strategies
with regard to child abuse do not always sufficiently take into
consideration the potential offenders and the possible interventions
on their behalf, such as, for example, possible ways of preventing
them from proceeding from fantasy to action. Psychological experts
distinguish between three categories of paedophile offenders: (1)
paedophile sex offenders characterised by a permanent perversion
and orientation towards paedophile practices who have a high criminal
energy and show dangerous behaviour on a long-term basis, (2) offenders
with a general potential of violence or sadistic treatment of others,
and (3) offenders who have remained infantile in their personality
and who are not capable of establishing mature hetero- or homosexual
relationships.
Generally, the diagnosis and
treatment of paedophilia are not sufficiently taught to medical
professionals (medical specialists, psychologists, etc.). The rapporteur
suggests that this aspect also be taken into account in the framework
of national strategies and action plans to be developed and implemented,
but considers that – in times of scarce public resources at all
levels – the work in favour of (potential) offenders should not
be traded against assistance to be given to (potential) victims.
40. Finally, the rapporteur would like to point out that cases
of child abuse have also been reported from institutions that have
not been mentioned, but should not be forgotten about when it comes
to national action, such as international aid organisations or military
units on foreign missions whose members have abused children abroad.
She therefore considers that any action tackling child abuse in
institutions should be based on a broad understanding of “institutions”
and that the issue should be seen as a structural problem potentially concerning
all institutions showing certain characteristics. In order to efficiently
prevent future child abuse, all institutions and systems (potentially)
concerned need to be thoroughly analysed. Moreover, it seems sensible to
promote a balanced perception of institutions, which abandons naive
ideas of paradisiacal child care, but avoids a general suspicion
of all institutions which have recently been concerned by child
abuse.
4. Recommendations for future action
41. When looking at the cases of child abuse in institutions
which have occurred in various member states in past decades and
until very recently and the response given by different public stakeholders
involved, it becomes very clear that the issue needs to be addressed
at different levels and in a collective approach. Recommendations
of the Parliamentary Assembly certainly need to be addressed to
member states first of all, but national authorities do then need
to get a maximum of partners involved in order to tackle the issue
by the roots, which are to be found in the nature of institutional
child care itself, as well as in the human relationships that reign
in respective institutional contexts. From her own, very personal
point of view as a member of two round tables related to the issue
in Germany, the rapporteur would like to suggest the following,
non-exhaustive, list of measures to be considered by member states’
authorities and other partners in their future action:
4.1. Legislative action
42. At European level, paragraph 18 of the Council of
Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation
and Sexual Abuse clearly provides that any sexual child abuse “made
of a recognised position of trust, authority or influence over the
child” should be taken into account amongst the intentional conduct
to be criminalised through relevant legislative or other measures.
The rapporteur considers that all Council of Europe member states
should be urged to revise their respective legislation and take immediate
measures to reinforce their legislative provisions if necessary.
43. Although member states should legislate to prevent, prosecute
and punish all types of child abuse (physical and emotional as well
as sexual), they should also be invited to sign and ratify the Council
of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual
Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, if they have not yet done so, and
implement it through committed national follow-up action.
44. The time frame and context of the current report does not
allow for a comprehensive survey of relevant legislation in member
states of the Council of Europe. The few examples presented above,
however, all seem to point to one crucial issue: the question whether
national legislation obliges all public and private institutions, as
well as NGOs or medical professionals who may be approached by victims,
without exception, to report sexual abuse to civil authorities,
and notably the instances under criminal legislation. This seems
to be the case in some Council of Europe member states but not in
all. Even where legislation provides for such rules, the question
remains open whether it is always rigorously applied or not.
45. With regard to according full justice to victims and reaching
a maximum protection of potential victims, all Council of Europe
member states should introduce regulations providing for an ex officio prosecution of all abuse
cases involving minors (both children and adolescents). This is
particularly important for adolescents of an advanced age who are
not always in a position to refuse sexual advances made to them
– notably in the context of child care and educational institutions.
It should therefore not be assumed that adolescents have consented
to sexual acts just because they are considered to be “sexually
mature”.
46. An approach that is generally not recommended by experts at
the moment is the one of making formal complaints against an alleged
perpetrator a mandatory step whenever child abuse occurs. Although
this would allow judicial procedures to be immediately set in motion,
it is not always seen as a measure being in the best interest of
the child. Some children and adolescents may find themselves in
contexts where they could be stigmatised if they file complaints
against persons of authority in institutions where they may be obliged
to remain after an offence.
47. Another legislative aspect to be dealt with by member states
is the statutes of limitation prevailing for cases of child abuse
in any context, currently debated by most of the countries where
cases of abuse in institutions have recently been uncovered and
publicly debated. In Germany, the Federal Minister of Justice,
as
well as several ministers of the German
Länder,
are currently looking into the possibility of taking far-reaching
legal measures with regard to the problem, such as the prolongation
of statutes of limitation under civil and criminal law. Some legal
experts are in favour of prolonging prescription periods for compensation (under
civil law) for up to thirty years. At the same time, experts are
currently examining the possibilities of prolonging prescription
periods for prosecution under criminal law, which are currently
of five to ten years according to the degree of abuse and to the
corresponding maximum penalty possible.
In any case, prescription periods
should start to run only when the victim reaches the age of majority.
48. Generally speaking, the rapporteur would recommend that member
states introduce systems of “graded prosecution” of child abuse
according to the gravity of offences, which include measures for
all kinds of child abuse (sexual, physical and emotional). Other
legislative measures could be taken at various levels so as to reinforce
children’s rights and protection, for example by defining the rights
and responsibilities of educational staff, by defining or revising
the minimum requirements for the certification of child care institutions
and conditions to be fulfilled by its management or by making compulsory
police clearance certificates for all educational staff. Certain
practices for dealing with “recalcitrant” children, such as certain
methods of punishment in youth detention facilities, should be excluded
by law and the respect of relevant regulations closely monitored.
Finally, an aspect not to be neglected is the support and assistance
of children in the judicial procedures themselves. Without dealing
with this aspect in detail, the rapporteur would like to refer to
the guidelines on child-friendly justice which are currently being
elaborated by the Council of Europe intergovernmental bodies and
are expected to be adopted by the Committee of Ministers before
the end of 2010. She also recalls that many member states, including
Germany, already have extensive experience of child-friendly judicial
procedures and assures her country’s willingness to share its experience
in this field.
4.2. Administrative action
49. It is at the level of institutions themselves that
existing shortcomings need to be identified and subsequent correctional
measures need to be taken. The facilitating factors of child abuse,
as generally set out above, should be further analysed and understood.
Based on this knowledge, all institutions should develop internal
guidelines with a view to reinforcing the respect of children’s
rights, to preventing child abuse and to dealing with cases of child
abuse once they have occurred. These guidelines can be developed
by each category of institution at whatever hierarchical level they
consider appropriate, but public authorities of member states can
certainly have a co-ordinating function in this respect. Each institution
then needs to make sure that the children and adolescents concerned
know about the guidelines and their respective rights and are able
to find interlocutors whenever they see their rights violated. Substantial
and comprehensive “recommendations for the prevention of sexual
abuse, as well as on the appropriate behaviour in the case of abuse”,
have just been edited by the German Caritas Association (Deutscher
Caritasverband) with regard to abuse cases occurring in its own
institutions hosting children, young people and disabled persons.
The document has been taken into consideration in the preparation
of the present report and the recommendations proposed. The rapporteur
particularly appreciates that the German Caritas Association puts
the emphasis of its guidelines on prevention and the early identification
of risks and places the well-being of the child at the very heart
of the matter.
50. The mechanisms set up for supervising educational and child
care institutions, notably those under public authority, should
be reinforced. They should be structured in a way which is clear
and understandable for all professionals involved. Provision should
be made for interlocutors to whom uncovered or suspected cases of
abuse can be reported, even if it is, as a first step, to know how
to deal with a specific situation without entirely uncovering it.
Furthermore, the staff of educational and child care institutions
should be obliged to follow special training and continuous education
programmes to be developed with a view to identifying potential
abuse and reacting to abuse in an appropriate manner once it has
occurred. The same training requirements should apply, mutatis mutandis, to police, prosecutors
and judges dealing with child abuse.
51. First of all, children and adolescents themselves should be
provided with independent and entirely neutral bodies they can turn
to whenever they fear abuse by a person in charge of their education
or care, or whenever they experience such abuse or they witness
such abuse inflicted on other children. Advice and assistance services
for children and adolescents should be comprehensive, in the sense
of covering the full range of potential problems and the complete
national territory, and take into consideration particular needs. Specific
services could, for example, be developed for various focus groups,
such as girls and boys, persons with disabilities or coming from
particular religious backgrounds. Such bodies could be set up by
public authorities themselves, providing that the necessary resources
are available in the long run. Confidential and independent services
for children could, however, also be developed in co-operation with
national NGOs which, very often, already show a great presence with
regard to child abuse in any context. Their existing structures,
knowledge and resources could be mobilised by making them an official
partner of national strategies for the protection of victims and
prevention of child abuse. Generally, all assistance systems and structures
should be linked up with each other, so as to be aware of their
respective action (medical professionals and hospitals, teachers
and educational institutions at all school levels from kindergarten
to high school, police, youth services and sanitary administration,
etc.).
4.3. Political action
52. A large range of political measures could be taken
to support the implementation of legislative measures and measures
concerning the institutions themselves and related bodies or organisations.
First of all, member states should launch comprehensive national
processes and enquiries dealing with past offences, including further
research on the issue as well as debates on how victims could be
compensated in one way or another for their suffering. The main
objective of this “view on the past” would be to accord full justice
to victims who were ready to unveil what has happened to them, but
also to learn further lessons from the past in order to determine
future action to be taken, for example by understanding better the
causes of child abuse in institutions.
53. Children are the most vulnerable members of society. They
have their own rights which are, amongst others, guaranteed by international
instruments like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child (UNCRC). Protecting them from abuse in any context thus
becomes a central issue regarding the respect of human rights. By
studying what happened in past decades and by listening to victims,
awareness should be raised for the fact that child abuse in institutions,
although it seems to be a particular problem of society, is of concern
for all of us. Apart from listening to victims, the fact of recognising
what happened to them as “wrong” can very often already be a first
step towards compensating them. After having been forced into silence
for many years through the trauma from which they suffered, they
are finally allowed to speak up, which is already felt as a strong
relief by many victims, even though speaking about past offences
often means “re-traumatising” them. Following the unveiling of offences,
victims should be granted support in dealing with their trauma,
for example through easily accessible therapeutic assistance free
of bureaucracy.
54. The main political action to be taken should be to develop
comprehensive prevention strategies involving all stakeholders concerned,
namely public authorities, private and religious organisations,
NGOs, but also families and the children themselves. Possible action
could start off with practical tools such as national action plans,
guidelines and codes of conduct, followed by awareness-raising campaigns
for the importance of a loving and caring family environment, to
programmes for empowering children, comprehensive assistance services
for children, child and youth participation strategies, but also
measures tackling potential offenders themselves, who can, in some
cases, be identified and assisted before committing offences.
5. Conclusions
55. In concluding, the rapporteur would like to emphasise
that child abuse in the institutional context is not an issue which
concerns only institutions or certain types of institutions. It
is a problem that reaches into all spheres of society which are
closely interlinked whenever abuse situations occur in one of them:
thus, any case of child abuse in a school also becomes a problem
to be treated with and within the family. The issue furthermore
concerns all types of institutions where adults are in charge of
child care within more or less closed or supervised systems. The
prevalence of child abuse in certain types of institutions seems
to be, amongst others, linked to the place they represent in a given
national context. Thus, if Catholic institutions have been greatly
concerned by cases of child abuse in some countries, this may be
partly due to the fact that the Catholic Church is responsible for
a great share of educational facilities in these countries.
56. The rapporteur considers that the Parliamentary Assembly,
through its recommendations, should not directly interfere with
internal structural issues of any church or other private organisation.
She is, however, convinced that the church, as a central institution
of European societies and main stakeholder in many social issues
and developments, just as other organisations, should not be exempt
from constructive criticism. Despite their long history, manifold
traditions and an often high degree of independence, the church
institutions which are an integral part and active partner of modern
societies need to respect the same rules of transparency and rule
of law as other private organisations or public institutions. They
are not, and should not be, above the law.
The
church and its institutions are considered as trusted communities
by European societies and their citizens. In situations where this
trust is undermined by the misbehaviour of individual representatives,
the church therefore has a responsibility to question and revise
its own functioning and mechanisms, which might have contributed
to or facilitated the abuse of trust in the past.
57. Based on the first and very general recommendations compiled
above (Chapter 4), the Parliamentary Assembly should notably invite
member states to launch and co-ordinate national processes aimed
at taking legislative, administrative and political action in favour
of the situation of children in institutions and of preventing their
abuse in the future. Other national partners and stakeholders should
be invited to contribute to relevant review processes and question
their own action. By quoting the words of Commissioner Marian Shanley
at the hearing in Strasbourg on 22 June 2010, the rapporteur would
like to encourage member states to address the issue of child abuse
in institutions as constructively as possible: “Countries who tackle
the issue will be the strong force. The problem can be solved, and
the current debate is a healthy pro-active approach.”
58. The Parliamentary Assembly and its Social, Health and Family
Affairs Committee, as well as the latter’s Sub-Committee on Children,
will continue to promote the fight against child abuse in institutions
in the context of the Council of Europe Campaign to Stop Sexual
Violence against Children to be launched on 29 and 30 November 2010
in Rome. All member states of the Council of Europe, as well as
other national stakeholders, should also be invited to contribute
to this campaign through specific national action in order to give
the highest visibility possible to children’s rights and to increase
the means at their disposal to protect children from abuse in all
circumstances.