As part of a large scandal that erupted after claims of sexual violence against minors that allegedly took place for several decades, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) concluded, Thursday 1er July, a first step towards a historic agreement of some 850 million dollars for tens of thousands of victims. The agreement must however be confirmed and validated by a judge.
It was negotiated with lawyers representing 60,000 people claiming to have been sexually assaulted, as part of a reorganization process initiated by the American Scouts in 2020 and negotiations conducted for years with victims and several insurance companies. . Nearly 100,000 complaints of sexual abuse had been filed between February and November 2020 by Americans aged 10 to over 90 years against the Boy Scouts of America, the main scouting organization in the country, which had set up a fund compensation.
“The biggest sexual abuse scandal in the United States”
This number greatly exceeds the number of complaints filed in recent years against the Catholic clergy. The negotiated sum, if validated by justice, would make this agreement one of the most important in the history of the United States in the field of sexual assault. “This is by far the biggest sexual abuse scandal in the United States”, had also affirmed in November Paul Moses, lawyer of certain victims.
For their part, the American Scouts said in a statement to have “Reached an agreement with the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice, which represents a large majority of the plaintiffs”. It is, according to them, a “Substantial progress” for “Reach a comprehensive resolution that will fairly compensate survivors and secure the future of Scouting”. All the plaintiffs will now have to vote to accept this agreement, which will also have to be negotiated with the insurance companies.
In 2012, internal documents relating to decades of sexual violence within the Boy Scouts ranks came to light, sparking a huge scandal and the start of several years of legal action and costly lawsuits for the Boy Scouts of America. The organization filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, in order to freeze all claims for compensation in court and redirect them to the compensation fund. Founded in 1910, it has 2.2 million members aged 5 to 21.