Three months after its launch, the independent commission responsible for investigating sexual assaults in the Portuguese Church has already collected 290 testimonies from alleged victims, sixteen of which have been communicated to the courts, she said on Tuesday 12 april.
“The commission validated 290 testimonies”, but “it seems that there are more victims”said child psychiatrist Pedro Stretch, who heads this commission, whose work began in January, during a press conference.
The testimonies gathered so far concern people born between 1934 and 2009, mostly male, from all regions of the country and from different social categories. “It’s just the tip of the iceberg”affirmed the sociologist Ana Nunes de Almeida, member of this commission, adding that it had been difficult, for the moment, to reach certain categories of the population.
The number of victims estimated at 330,000
The testimonies mention different forms of sexual assault, mainly practiced by men directly linked to the Church, which range from “exhibition to penetration through contacts” sexual, even “photos or messages of a sexual nature”she clarified.
This commission, made up of six experts, had been created on the initiative of the Portuguese Church, a country with a strong Catholic tradition, in order to shed light on the issue of sexual violence against “minors and vulnerable adults”. This group is inspired by the work of the independent commission chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, which had revealed the extent of pedocrime in the French Church.
She had estimated at 330,000 the number of people who had been the subject of sexual violence since 1950, when they were minors, from clerics, religious or people linked to the Church. The work of the Portuguese commission should be completed at the end of the year and will give rise to a report which will then be submitted to the Portuguese episcopal conference.