Religious organisations and communities are frequent targets of abusers.
Religious institutions are often well-placed and strongly motivated to cover up incidents of sexual and physical abuse.
We work to hold these organisations to account and get justice for abuse victims and survivors.
Many religious organisations enjoy a close relationship with the establishment and tend to see themselves as above the law. This can increase the risk of abuse, prevent perpetrators from facing justice, and impede efforts to support and compensate victims and survivors of abuse.
Those intent on abuse are often attracted to religious institutions. Such organisations give access to, and sometimes extreme control over, numerous children and vulnerable adults.
When abuse does occur, religious organisations often act to protect the reputation of the institution above the rights of the victim. They may pressure the victim to stay silent and move the perpetrator to somewhere unaware of their reputation.
Many religious institutions also have influence and connections that enable them to evade justice and scrutiny, often for decades.
All forms of abuse, be they sexual, physical or psychological, can cause serious harm. Victims of abuse in religious settings have suffered physical and mental health problems, including addiction, self-harm and suicide.
Abuse can take place in any religious setting. That's why we work at the national and international level to hold religious organisations to account for safeguarding failings, and to ensure victims and survivors can get justice.
Take action!
1. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
2. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support our work to end abuse in religion settings
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
1200 cases of FGM reported in three months – but data “likely” to underestimate
Posted: Thu, 9 Jun 2016 12:13
New data has shown a surge in reported cases of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in England, with over 1200 reports made in the first three months of 2016.
Figures released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that there were 1242 newly "recorded cases of FGM" from January to March 2016 and that over half of the cases came from women and girls in London.
The Centre said that the data included 11 "newly recorded cases" of FGM involving "women and girls reported to have been born in the United Kingdom."
The release of the figures comes after a law requiring the mandatory reporting of FGM in England and Wales came into force in October 2015.
Dr Antony Lempert of the Secular Medical Forum said forced genital cutting was a "serious problem throughout the world including the UK" and that the new law was possibly leading to "an increased culture of reporting of FGM" even though reporting is only mandatory in cases involving girls who are under 18 years old.
Commenting on the new data he said: "Most cases in the reported dataset were of FGM types 1 and 2 which include the permanent violent removal of the clitoris and labia. Type 3 FGM includes the practice of infibulation whereby the vaginal opening is sewn up. This carries significant risks for menstruation, urination and childbirth and is known to increase maternal and infant mortality and often causes lifelong misery.
"Forced genital cutting involves powerful adults with vested interests forcibly removing erogenous, functional, intimate tissue from the healthy body of a vulnerable child whose intimate relationships will be affected lifelong by the practice. In some cases children will suffer horrendous injuries, some will die. In all cases of forced genital cutting, children's basic human rights are denied."
The Secular Medical Forum also warned that "Official figures are likely to be underestimates as most of the cutting of children's genitals takes place in secret.
Dr Lempert said that the "lifelong misery" caused by FGM is also "likely to be underestimated as many adults suffer in silence rather than face the shame or the danger of challenging the culture of their birth."
To stamp out the practice, Dr Lempert said that prosecution of perpetrators certainly had a place, but he cautioned that this would not be enough on its own. He said that educating children to the danger had to be part of the solution and that there could be no "tacit abandonment" of "children to forced genital cutting."
He said that even some parents who resist the communal pressure to have FGM inflicted on their own children "will resist attempts to prosecute their parents or community leaders even should they later find out how much harm has been done to them."
"Basic human and child rights must not depend on the accident of place and culture of birth nor on the gender of the child".
He also argued that efforts to tackle FGM were being undermined by the acceptance of non-therapeutic male circumcision. "Some communities understandably challenge the perceived hypocrisy of being lectured at and prosecuted for cutting girls' genitalia by societies which laud the practice of forced genital cutting of male genitalia similarly for no medical reason."
Dr Lempert said that "Whilst the harms are naturally different between boys and girls, so they are between the different types of FGM which range from a small pinprick to severely mutilating surgery. All forms of forced genital cutting risk serious sexual, physical and emotional harm including death for no medical reason."
"The Secular Medical Forum supports the inalienable right of every person to grow up with an intact body protected from the various whims and religious or cultural dogmas of adults within whose communities they happen to have been born. We consider the best approach to tackling FGM is one that educates all children and communities that children's bodies are not the property of their parents, that surgery should be performed only when there is a medical imperative and that all forms of forced genital cutting by definition, deny children their basic human rights."
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society's campaigns director, said: "These latest figures show that despite the excellent work that has been done to raise the profile of FGM, there can no room for complacency, and more needs to be done to protect potential victims from this horrendous form of abuse. The human rights of children must never be overridden on the grounds of religion, tradition or culture."
There has never been a successful prosecution for Female Genital Mutilation in England and Wales.
Sex abuse victims doubt Pope’s decree on negligent bishops
Posted: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 12:39
A new decree issued by Pope Francis on 4 June under which bishops can be removed from office if found guilty of negligence involving grave abuse of minors or vulnerable adults has been greeted with cynicism by the National Secular Society and a victim support group.
The new decree does not equate to a criminal prosecution under secular law and the maximum sanction for bishops found guilty under this decree is removal from office, and even that is subject to Pontifical approval. Those disciplined under the new decree will not have a criminal record as a result and the decree does not apply to those of higher, or indeed lower, rank than bishops. Cardinals have been implicated in such facilitation but appear to be immune from sanction.
In a similar move last year, the Pope announced a Tribunal to discipline such bishops, but it appears never to have met. This decree, and the Tribunal that preceded it, may be a Church response to the growing willingness to prosecute senior clerics, especially in the US, on charges such as child endangerment. By announcing such disciplinary measures, the Church implies that criminal prosecutions are unnecessary and that those suspected of facilitating abuse will be subjected to due process by the Church.
Those states that have signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which includes the Vatican, are subject to a five-yearly review. A review of the Vatican concluded in 2014 that "almost all those who concealed child sexual abuse [were allowed] to escape judicial proceedings in States where abuses were committed". It recommended that the Church's archives should be shared in order that "all those who concealed their crimes and knowingly placed offenders in contact with children" were held accountable.
There is no evidence that the Vatican followed this, or any other recommendation, of the UN relating to clerical abuse of minors.
Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, and who was appointed by the Pope to his Commission on such abuse commented: "Having seen the way the hierarchy of the church functions (if function is the correct description), it is hard to see this latest pronouncement by the Pope making any difference whatsoever to the protection of children. Abusing clergy and those who cover up, whatever their rank, should be removed from ministry immediately and all information about them, held by church officials, should be handed over to the civil authorities."
The Pope is already aware of bishops, archbishops and cardinals who should have been de-frocked long ago but continue to live the life of luxury in Rome.
Keith Porteous Wood, NSS Executive Director, added: "In the interests of the countless victims of Catholic child abuse all over the world, we call on the International community to bring pressure to bear on the Vatican to implement the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child relating to the abuse of children by clerics and those that facilitate them – that they should be made accountable to secular authorities."
The Pope may also have felt under pressure to act given the criticism of him for support of the French Cardinal Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, who is being investigated by the police following repeated accusations of covering up the cases of priests alleged to have abused minors, despite the law requiring such cases to be reported. Francis has publicly visited Barbarin and opposed calls for his resignation that would be a "a mistake, an imprudence."
