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
NSS: government must push Vatican to cooperate with abuse inquiry
Posted: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 16:06
The National Secular Society has urged the prime minister to raise the Catholic Church's failure to cooperate with a major child abuse inquiry with her counterpart in the Vatican.
The NSS made the call after a papal representative was accused of "hiding behind his diplomatic immunity" to avoid providing evidence to the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
IICSA has written to archbishop Edward Adams, the papal nuncio in Britain, several times to request a statement on abuse in Catholic schools, but has received no response.
The statement requested by IICSA would specifically relate to investigations into abuse at Ealing Abbey and the affiliated St Benedict's school in west London. On Monday the inquiry began a five-day hearing into abuse in Ealing.
Riel Karmy-Jones QC, counsel to IICSA, said the inquiry had asked for a "voluntary statement" on the handling of complaints about Catholic schools in England and Wales.
Karmy-Jones said the inquiry had received "confirmation that its request was being carefully considered" but no statements or "substantive responses".
IICSA's chair has the power to call evidence and can usually ensure those who defy a request go to prison, but Adams is covered by diplomatic immunity. The Vatican's representatives are treated as diplomats due to its status as an independent country.
The NSS's president Keith Porteous Wood has now written to Theresa May to encourage her "to bring all the pressure you can" to ensure the Catholic Church "cannot refuse to be held to account".
"We request you to write to your counterpart in the Vatican to urge it to take seriously the Catholic Church's duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales by providing the information sought by IICSA.
"While we recognise that the Vatican, as a sovereign state, can refuse, it cannot do so while maintaining any credibility of remorse for the scale of past abuse or any willingness to rectify it. The repeated apologies about clerical abuse given by Catholic leaders, including the pope, are meaningless unless backed up by action."
The Vatican decreed in 1962 that it would hold all information about clerical abuse in the Catholic Church globally. The decision has made it particularly difficult for the authorities in several countries to investigate abuse.
In 2011 a report revealed that the Catholic Church had frustrated inquiries into child sexual abuse in Ireland, leading to blistering criticism from the Irish prime minister. The Vatican's embassy in Ireland was closed shortly afterwards, reopening 26 months later.
The Vatican also refused permission for a senior official to give evidence at the trial of Philippe Barbarin in Lyon last month.
Explaining his decision to write the letter, Mr Porteous Wood said the government "must ensure the Catholic Church realises the consequences of failing to comply with inquiries into child sexual abuse".
"Once again the Vatican is brazenly hindering efforts to bring justice to child abuse survivors and prevent their ordeal from being repeated. This should be shocking but the sad reality is that this is the Catholic Church's normal response.
"Any state which defied eminently reasonable requests to help the authorities to investigate and prevent such crimes would suffer significant consequences, and the Vatican should be no exception."
This week David Enright, a prominent lawyer representing victims of abuse in Catholic schools at IICSA, said he had urged the prime minister to expel Adams if he fails to cooperate with the inquiry.
In his opening statement, Enright said Adams had shown a "flagrant disregard" for the inquiry.
"Rather than answer [the inquiry's] requests for evidence, the nuncio, secreted in his papal residence in Wimbledon, first hid behind his diplomatic status and then simply refused to even acknowledge the repeated and ever more urgent letters.
"The penalty for failing to comply with a notice from the chair [of the inquiry] is up to 51 weeks' imprisonment. The papal nuncio needs to know that he has only three options: offer up the evidence, face criminal prosecutions or face expulsion from the UK."
Richard Scorer, an NSS vice-president and a specialist abuse lawyer at the law firm Slater and Gordon, told the inquiry: "It is absolutely outrageous that the papal nuncio seeks to hide behind diplomatic immunity to avoid giving information to the inquiry. Yet again it shows the Vatican stalling and covering up scandal and gives the lie to their claims of change."
IICSA's hearings have heard that children at St Benedict's were often subjected to sexual assaults during corporal punishment, forced to perform sexual acts and raped.
The hearings form the second part of IICSA's investigation into the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC), a Catholic monastic order. Last year the inquiry published a report on the sexual abuse of children at Ampleforth and Downside, two leading Catholic schools also run by the EBC.
Several clergy have faced allegations of historical offences against boys at St Benedict's. In 2017 a priest who abused boys at St Benedict's and then fled to Kosovo in an attempt to escape justice, Andrew Soper, was convicted of 19 rapes and sexual offences.
On Monday Ruth Henke QC, speaking on behalf of Ealing Abbey Monastic Community, told the inquiry: "I offer a sincere, unreserved and profound apology to each and every survivor. For all the harm caused to survivors, we are truly, truly sorry and will never cease saying sorry."
And Christopher Jamison, abbot president of the EBC, said: "I am truly sorry for what has happened and apologise unequivocally to all those who suffered and were abused by anyone connected with our abbeys and schools."
MP calls for mandatory reporting of child abuse during PMQs
Posted: Thu, 29 Nov 2018 14:55
The National Secular Society has welcomed an MP's call for a law to require the reporting of suspected child abuse, including in the Church of England, at prime minister's questions.
Tracy Brabin, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire, raised the subject in the House of Commons on Wednesday. She asked whether Theresa May would "commit to protect children and introduce mandatory reporting across all institutions, including the Church of England".
She highlighted the case of her constituent Matthew Ineson, who has waived his anonymity to highlight the abuse he suffered. She said mandatory reporting could have prevented abuse which has recently been scrutinised at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
She also said international evidence shows that mandatory reporting "doubles the number of children placed in safety".
In response the prime minister said there was "mixed evidence on the impact of mandatory reporting". She added that "we are doing our best to repair… by giving some sense of justice to the people who suffered at the hands of too many institutions, including institutions of the state, for too long".
NSS vice-president Richard Scorer welcomed Brabin's intervention.
"Tracy Brabin is right to highlight the need for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, including in the Church of England.
"The evidence which has emerged from recent hearings at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been a damning reminder of the long history of excuses and cover-ups of child abuse in religious institutions. A mandatory reporting law would have helped to tackle this.
"The government must put child protection before deference to religious groups."
The NSS campaigns for effective measures to bring perpetrators of clerical child abuse to secular justice.
In recent months the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has heard damning evidence of the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the C of E. Mr Scorer has been closely involved in the inquiry's hearings in his role as a lawyer representing some of the victims.
And earlier this year a BBC report revealed that the church had engaged in a huge cover-up of sexual abuse by drastically reducing the number of cases it deemed to require formal action.
On Wednesday Ineson welcomed Brabin's intervention and called mandatory reporting a "hugely important" issue. But he described May's response as "somewhat weak and evasive" and offered to meet her to discuss the issue.
Meanwhile this week three survivors of abuse within the Church of England told the NSS they knew of 18 bishops who failed to act in response to their abuse alone.
One of the survivors, Gilo, said this reflected "the reality that the C of E dare not face squarely".
"The C of E leadership is failing to take any ownership of all this denial and pretending that everyone will look away. It's an 'emperor's new clothes' situation. Eventually the hierarchy will look more and more ridiculous, and all this pretence and denial will no longer be sustainable."
Image: Tracy Brabin MP, © Chris McAndrew [CC BY 3.0]
