Secularists welcome Amnesty naming Vatican over Child Abuse

Secularists have welcomed Amnesty International’s naming of the Vatican in its 2011 report into human rights abuses around the world. Amnesty criticises the Vatican, and its political arm the Holy See, for failing to honour its obligations under the United Nations Charter on the Rights of the Child, to which it is a signatory. This is the first time Amnesty has reported on the Vatican.

The National Secular Society, whose Executive Director has been pursuing the Vatican at the United Nations Human Rights Council over its consistent failure to file reports as it is required to do under the terms of the Charter, congratulated Amnesty for drawing attention once more to this reluctance by the Vatican to face up to its responsibilities and admit its failures.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society said: “from the highest echelons of the Vatican down to local level, the Roman Catholic Church continues to obstruct investigations into the horrific abuse of children under its care. It is beyond contention that the Vatican has broken at least six Articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“That scandal is almost equalled by the failure, so far, of international bodies to bring the Vatican to account.

“We call on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Union and the Council of Europe – as well as their member states of goodwill – to call the Vatican to account for its past failures, in particular to press for the Vatican:

* to release its secret child abuse files to prosecuting authorities
* to require suspicions of child abuse within the Church to be reported to secular authorities without recourse to the Vatican
* to instruct all those under the control of the Church to cooperate with secular authorities over enquiries connected with child abuse, and
* to correct its continuing failure to file a report with the UN due in 1997 on child protection

Keith Porteous Wood has made similar points at plenary sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in 2009, 2010 and most recently March 2011. He was speaking as an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

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