GENEVA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Victims testify to UN Panel on torture
Clergy abuse victims seek government intervention by US and Australia
This week a panel at the United Nations is reviewing compliance with meeting treaty obligations for, among other State parties, the United States and Australia. The review is being conducted by independent human rights experts from ten nations who make up the Committee Against Torture. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, has partnered with the Center for Constitutional Rights in submitting a Shadow Report outlining failures of the United States to protect against and provide redress for the nationwide and systemic sexual violence and cover-up by Catholic clergy. SNAP submitted a similar report outlining the same failures by the government of Australia. (Both reports are available at SNAPnetwork.org)
The review is being conducted by independent human rights experts from ten nations at the High Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva. The actual proceedings are available on the internet via live webcast. Representatives from SNAP from both the United States and Australia are providing testimony and reports to the Committee which will review Australia on Monday and Tuesday followed by the United States on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Committee Against Torture reviewed the Holy See earlier in 2014 and explicitly recognized cases of rape and sexual violence committed by clergy as within the purview of the treaty which both the United States and Australia have adopted. The Committee and other sources of international law view rape and sexual violence as amounting to torture.
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