WASHINGTON – Almost 90,000 victims of sexual abuse that took place in the Boy Scouts of America had come forward by yesterday evening, the deadline to receive compensation from the organisation, said a lawyer for the victims.
Attorney Michael Pfau said that there had been "88,000 claims filed to date".
“It will probably be 100,000 by day's end,” said Pfau.
The figure, revealing the scale of alleged abuse committed over decades by scout leaders, dwarfs the roughly 11,000 complaints believed to have been filed in recent years against the Catholic Church.
“We are devastated by the number of lives impacted by past abuse in scouting and moved by the bravery of those who have come forward,” the scouting organisation said in a statement.
“We are heartbroken that we cannot undo their pain.
“We intentionally developed an open, accessible process to reach survivors and help them take an essential step toward receiving compensation. The response we have seen from survivors has been gut-wrenching. We are deeply sorry.”
The group, founded in 1910, has 2.2 million members between the ages of five and 21.
Rocked by accusations of sexual abuse, the BSA filed for bankruptcy in February in an effort to block settlement claims from hitting the organisation directly and instead funnelled them to a compensation fund.
The group, valued at more than US$1 billion (RM4.1 billion), has not said how much they intend to spend via this fund. – AFP, November 17, 2020
