Tag: abuse

Guatemala prosecutors raid Save the Children over alleged abuse

GUATEMALA CITY, April 26, 2024 (AFP) – Guatemalan authorities on Thursday raided the offices of the international organization Save the Children in what the prosecutor’s office said was part of an investigation into alleged abuses against minors. A spokesperson for Save the Children confirmed that officials had entered its offices in Guatemala City, but declined to give more details. The operation was the result of “a transnational investigation of great significance, since it concerns actions […]

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Australian bishop charged with rape and indecent assault after Vatican probe

  SYDNEY, Feb 22, 2024 (AFP) – An Australian bishop is facing accusations of rape and indecent assault, becoming one of the most senior Catholics in the country to be charged with sex crimes. Emeritus Bishop Christopher Alan Saunders was arrested in Western Australia on Wednesday evening after a high-powered internal Vatican investigation spurred child abuse detectives into action. Police said he has been charged with 14 counts of unlawful and indecent assault and two […]

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Spanish clergy sexually abused over 200,000 children, probe estimates

By Diego URDANETA MADRID, Oct 27, 2023 (AFP) – Over 200,000 minors are estimated to have been sexually abused in Spain by the Roman Catholic clergy since 1940, according to an independent commission published Friday. The report did not give a specific figure but said a poll of over 8,000 people found that 0.6 percent of Spain’s adult population of around 39 million people said they had suffered sexual abuse by members of the clergy […]

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US man jailed for groping sleeping plane passenger

LOS ANGELES, Oct 6, 2023 (AFP) – A US man who groped a sleeping passenger on a plane was jailed Thursday for nearly two years. Mohammad Jawad Ansari, 50, put his hand on the inner thigh of a woman as she slept in the middle seat of a flight from Cleveland to Los Angeles in February 2020. The victim, who was wearing a dress, woke up and pushed Ansari’s hand away before leaving her seat […]

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‘Shattered Souls’ art installation shines light on Catholic church scandals

Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany : This photo taken on August 4, 2023 shows the art installation ‘Shattered Souls … in a Sea of Silence’ by German artist Dennis Josef Meseg in front of Cologne Cathedral, western Germany. With his installation, the artist wants to make the public aware of the desperate, silent cry of abused children for justice for their maltreated souls. 333 small mannequins, draped in the colours of innocence and the Curia, will […]

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Key member of pope’s sex abuse commission quits

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Wednesday 3/29/2023 The most influential member of a Vatican commission on tackling clerical sex abuse has quit, its leader said Wednesday, in the latest blow to a papal advisory body dogged by controversy. Hans Zollner, the public face of Pope Francis’s efforts to tackle the global paedophilia scandal, has resigned due to a heavy workload, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said. “The commission has been […]

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The reckoning: child sex abuse in the Catholic Church

  Paris, France | AFP | Monday 2/13/2023 Portugal on Monday will become the latest country to issue an independent report into clerical sexual abuse, an issue that has dogged the Catholic Church for years and undermined its moral authority. From Australia to Ireland via the United States, thousands of priests, bishops and cardinals have been caught up in abuse scandals, as well as lay members of the Church such as Catholic school teachers or […]

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Portugal Catholic clergy sexually abused nearly 5,000 minors: inquiry

Lisbon, Portugal | AFP | Monday 2/13/2023 by Thomas CABRAL Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday, announcing its findings after hearing hundreds of victim accounts. Thousands of reports of paedophilia within the Catholic Church have surfaced around the world and Pope Francis is under pressure to tackle the scandal. The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the Church in the staunchly Catholic country, published the results […]

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Prominent Canadian cardinal accused of sexual assault

MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet, who has a high-ranking position within the Vatican, has been accused of sexual assault in a class action suit that targets more than 80 members of the clergy in the Quebec diocese, court documents showed Tuesday. The accusation over the alleged abuse of a female intern in 2008 comes just weeks after Pope Francis visited Canada, where he apologized for the decades-long abuse of Indigenous children in […]

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‘Overwhelming’: Survivors reflect on pope’s Indigenous abuse apology

  MASKWACIS, Canada (AFP) — Some seemed far away, others wept or applauded: a great wave of emotion swept through the crowd on Monday in western Canada’s Maskwacis when the pope himself begged forgiveness for the “evil” done to Indigenous people. One way or another, they had all been affected by the decades of abuse against children in schools run by the Catholic Church, part of a system seeking to stamp out the Indigenous identity […]

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Pope apologizes for ‘evil’ of decades of abuse in Catholic-run residential schools in Canada

  by Clement Melki and Amel Semmache Agence France Presse Pope Francis on Monday apologized for the “evil” inflicted on the Indigenous peoples of Canada on the first day of a visit focused on addressing decades of abuse at Catholic-run residential schools. The plea for forgiveness from the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics was met with applause by a crowd of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people in Maskwacis, in western Alberta province […]

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Kevin Spacey pleads not guilty to sexual assault in UK

  by James PHEBY / Joe JACKSON Agence France Presse Hollywood star Kevin Spacey on Thursday pleaded not guilty at London’s Old Bailey court to four charges of sexual assault against three men. The 62-year-old star was wearing a blue suit and blue tie as he stood in the dock at the UK’s top criminal court. He spoke to confirm his name and age before pleading not guilty to four charges of sexual assault and […]

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