Since his appointment in March 2013, Pope Francis has made numerous pledges to reform the Church and take "decisive action"8 against child sexual abuse. At CRIN, we see this as an opportunity to challenge the new Pope to do what none before him have managed and keep his promises in this regard.
Our aim is to press the Holy See to become more transparent as a State with human rights obligations, and to open it up to further and effective scrutiny by UN bodies.
For too long campaigners on this issue have been silenced. We want to create a space where advocates can devise strategies to challenge these children’s rights violations and work collectively.
CRIN’s role
As an international children’s rights NGO, our contribution here is twofold:
- To bring information together to give a global picture of the scale of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church across the world. The preliminary report is just the start.
- To provide a platform for advocates, victims, lawyers and other campaigners to connect and learn about how people have succeeded in getting redress through legal and other challenges. We hope the January UN review is the beginning of this process.
This toolkit presents some ideas for campaign actions to take during the January review and beyond. We hope that it can then be developed into a more indepth toolkit with input from campaigners, lawyers and victims around the world. If you have any feedback, including further ideas, please email us.
We will update this toolkit after the UN’s review of the Holy See with additional ways that people can get involved, and will do the same as the campaign progresses, particularly as we start to put scrutiny on other religious institutions.
Visit our End sexual violence in religious institutions section for more on the wider campaign.
8. BBC News "Pope Francis calls for action on clerical sex abuse" (5 April 2013)