NEW YORK (NY)
Verdict
December 10, 2018
By Leslie C. Griffin
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently decided to permanently redact the names of eleven priests from the Fortieth Grand Jury’s report on sexual misconduct by the clergy in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses. The court ruled that the priests’ interest in their reputations was one of the “inherent rights of mankind” that the court needed to protect by taking the priests’ names out of the report. Redaction was the only path they thought they could find to protect the priests’ due process.
This conclusion was counter to the release of the complete report, which CHILD USA and BishopAccountability advocated in our amicus brief, which I wrote along with Marci Hamilton, Founder and CEO of CHILD USA. The court’s decision neglects the history of child abuse, which is a constant story of individuals who are terribly and repeatedly abused, and then never get justice.
The facts of child abuse are terrible and the stories about them constant. The Miami Herald recently told the story of more than 50 girls who were abused by rich Palm Beach businessman Jeffrey Epstein. Instead of having their interests protected, the girls were never told of Epstein’s “deal of a lifetime” with then-prosecutor and now Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta. The victims’ stories were kept quiet, and Epstein got a laughably short sentence. Epstein’s victims are still looking for justice.
Along with thousands of others. As many times as we read and re-read the statistics, they remain shocking. According to the American Society for the Positive Care of Children’s Sexual Abuse Statistics:
1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old.
Over 58,000 children were sexually abused last year.
8.3% of reported child abuse cases were sexual abuse.
34% of people who sexually abuse a child are family members.
12.3% of girls were age 10 or younger at the time of their first rape/victimization, and 30% of girls were between the ages of 11 and 17.
27.8% of boys were age 10 or younger at the time of their first rape/victimization.
96% of people who sexually abuse children are male, and 76.8% of people who sexually abuse children are adults.
325,000 children are at risk of becoming victims of commercial child sexual exploitation each year.
Caregiver alcohol or drug abuse is a child abuse risk factor putting kids at much higher risk for being abused.
The average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 12 to 14 years old, and the average age for boys is 11 to 13 years old.
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