Practically 90,000 sexual abuse claims expected against U.S. Boy Scouts
17 November, 2020
Practically 90,000 victims of sexual abuse that occurred on the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) had come ahead by Monday evening, the deadline to receive compensation from the business, an attorney for the victims told AFP.
Lawyer Michael Pfau said that there had been "88,000 claims filed to date. It will probably be 100,000 by day's end."
The figure, revealing the scale of alleged abuse committed over years by scout leaders, dwarfs the roughly 11,000 complaints thought to have been filed recently against the Catholic Church.
"We will be devastated by the number of lives impacted by earlier abuse in scouting and shifted by the bravery of these who have come forward," the scouting group said in a declaration. "We happen to be heartbroken that people cannot undo their soreness.
"We intentionally designed a start, accessible process to attain survivors and support them take an important step toward getting compensation. The response we have seen from survivors possesses been gut-wrenching. We happen to be deeply sorry," the BSA added.
The group, founded in 1910, has 2.2 million members between your age groups of five and 21.
Rocked simply by accusations of sexual abuse, the BSA filed for bankruptcy in February in order to block settlement claims from hitting the business directly and rather funneled them to a payment fund.
The group, which is valued at a lot more than $1 billion, hasn't said just how much they plan to spend via this fund.
Revelations of misconduct in U.S. scouting circles found widespread attention in 2012 when the LA Times published internal records spelling out information on years of sexual abuse.
Some 5,000 "perversion files" were uncovered, identifying about as many alleged culprits among scout leadership, including scoutmasters and troop leaders.
Most incidents were hardly ever reported to authorities, and the BSA took it upon themselves to remove the accused offenders.
Multiple cases have already been filed against the BSA since 2012, especially following several states extended the statute of limitations over allegations of kid sexual assault.
Source: japantoday.com
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