ECM: Be pro-active in protecting Children from abuse

Malawi’s Diocesan Child Protection Coordinators (DCPC) and Catholic Secretariat Child Protection Focal Persons have been challenged to take a leading role in ensuring that children within and outside the Church are well protected.
ECM Secretary General Fr. Henry Saindi made the call when he opened a two-days induction training course on Child Protection at the Catholic Secretariat in Lilongwe, Malawi.

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/06/08/ecm_be_pro-active_in_protecting_children_from_abuse/1317801

Clann: Ireland’s Unmarried Mothers and their Children: Gathering the Data

Clann  EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO ATTEND FACILITATED MEETINGS WITH MINISTER ZAPPONE Important: the deadline for submission of expressions of interest is June 12th

Click here for further information

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CURRENT CLANN PROJECT WITNESSES AND NEW WITNESSES INTERESTED IN AVAILING OF STATEMENT-DRAFTING ASSISTANCE

http://clannproject.org/ 

Mother-and-baby home survivors accuse Zappone over redress

Survivors of Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes have accused Minister for Children Katherine Zappone of trying to get them not to push for State compensation for their detention.

In a letter to survivors, Ms Zappone has invited survivors of institutions under investigation by the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to meetings, beginning with one in Dublin on June 30th. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/mother-and-baby-home-survivors-accuse-zappone-over-redress-1.3109883?utm_content=sf-man 

Convent that 'forced' young mothers to give up their babies

Children given up for adoption as babies are trying to trace the mothers who say they were pressured by Catholic nuns into giving them away.  Hundreds of teenage mothers who gave birth at a Roman Catholic convent in Britain had “no choice” but to give up their babies for adoption, it can be disclosed.

Despite desperately wanting to keep them, many of the women say they were forcefully encouraged to give up their babies by the convent’s nuns, who told them that as single women they would not make good mothers and did not deserve to have a child.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10932969/Convent-that-forced-young-mothers-to-give-up-their-babies.html 

Downward trend in reports of new clerical child sex abuse allegations continues

The Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog received reports of 72 new allegations of clerical child sex abuse as well as 10 of physical and emotional abuse in the year to March 31st 2017, as a downward trend in such allegations continues.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), based at Maynooth, also received one allegation relating to boundary violation during the year and three where the abuse was unspecified. Most allegations related to a period from the 1950s to the 1990s, with a sharp drop after the year 2000.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/downward-trend-in-reports-of-new-clerical-child-sex-abuse-allegations-continues-1.3093486 

Baltimore braces for documentary on nun's death, sex abuse at Catholic school

Donna Von Den Bosch climbed to the attic of her home so she could watch the footage alone. The images flashed on her computer screen: the police car, the churches, the priests. Her heart raced. "I'm 60," she told herself, again and again. "I'm not 15 anymore."
Von Den Bosch was watching the trailer of the upcoming Netflix documentary "The Keepers." The seven-part series focuses on sexual abuse in the 1960s and '70s at Archbishop Keough High School and the unsolved 1969 disappearance and death of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, an English teacher at the Catholic school in Southwest Baltimore.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-the-keepers-20170511-story.html 

McAleese inquiry told of Tuam mother and baby home deaths in 2012

The head of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, has referred 2,025 incidents of abuse to authorities since 2013, provoking 127 prosecutions to date.
McClellan will share the figures at the National Council of Churches conference in Melbourne on Tuesday via a video address. He will tell the conference the volume of referrals was so great that there may be further prosecutions once they had been fully assessed by police.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/16/royal-commission-has-led-to-more-than-100-child-abuse-prosecutions-says-head 

'The Keepers' recap, Episode 2: Jane Doe's story of abuse

Before we meet Jane Doe and hear her story, I feel compelled to make an observation: I was stunned Netflix didn’t precede this episode with a strongly worded caution about the content.
As this series generally and this episode in particular painfully make clear, there are a lot of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. And while it’s become trendy in certain circles to mock the concept of trigger warnings, post-traumatic stress disorder is a not uncommon occurrence among child sex abuse survivors.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/tv-lust/bs-fe-keepers-recap-episode-2-story.html 

Women excluded from Magdalene scheme were denied fair procedure - court rules

Two former industrial school residents, who worked in laundries but were excluded from the Magdalene compensation scheme, were denied fair procedures in how the decision was reached, a High Court judge has ruled.

The women had claimed that as girls in industrial schools they were forced to work in the laundries. Mr Justice Michael White has directed the Department’s restorative justice unit (RJU) to reconsider the matter in light of his findings and in the context of a review involving the unit and Ombudsman’s office concerning the scope of the ex gratia scheme.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/women-excluded-from-magdalene-scheme-were-denied-fair-procedure-court-rules-1.3104831#.WTFA5c2M7S0.mailto 

Children of sin: Quebec and Irish orphans share stories of abuse under care of Catholic Church

In a tucked-away office at Montreal's Concordia University, a video conference connects two groups of survivors separated by an ocean but linked by their so-called "illegitimate" births — Quebec's Duplessis Orphans and the survivors of Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes.
One by one, they introduce themselves, starting with their names and where they were born: Mount Providence orphanage in Montreal, Saint Patrick's Home in Dublin, Baie-Saint-Paul orphanage in Quebec.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/duplessis-orphans-meet-irish-mother-baby-homes-1.4142930 

Laundries inquiry told of Tuam mother and baby home deaths in 2012

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The McAleese inquiry into Magdalene laundries was informed 5 years ago about “disturbing” infant death rates at the former Tuam Mother and Baby Home.
The information was sent by Professor Jim Smith of Boston College and the Justice for Magdalenes Research group, more than two years before the Tuam babies story made international headlines.

http://connachttribune.ie/laundries-inquiry-told-of-tuam-mother-and-baby-home-deaths-in-2012/ 

Katherine Zappone: I sometimes wonder what will they say on Reeling in the Years about 2017

JUST three years ago, a brave local historian called Catherine Corless shared her research about the Mother and Baby Home with an astonished and horrified public.
A brave survivor was also willing to tell her story. We all read, watched and listened as the shocking details unfolded of a mass grave in the grounds of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/katherine-zappone-i-sometimes-wonder-what-will-they-say-on-reeling-in-the-years-about-2017-451486.html