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More than 95,000 Americans who belonged to Boy Scouts reported sexual abuse, which the organization was determined to keep secret.
That something bad was happening in the Boys Scouts of America had been a secret of Pulcinella for decades. From the first years of its foundation, in 1910, it began to report problems of abuse. Internal organization documents documented how many “degenerates” became Scout leaders and abused dozens of children.
They remained silent and decided to hide the malignant tumor that was rooted within the organization, whose mission was to promote “patriotism, courage, independence and other virtues,” as enshrined in a constitutional act of the last century congress.
More than 130 million Americans have joined the organization, including such personalities as former President John F. Kennedy, astronaut Neil Armstrong, Ernst Green, civil rights icon or director Steven Spielberg.
See more: Horrible, more than 80,000 reports of sexual abuse against Boy Scouts
And although it has enjoyed great prestige for years, there have been rumors of sexual abuse since almost 1916. Second The New York Times in his 1935 files, a member of the Boy Scouts confessed to having archives on hundreds of former leaders who had been labeled “degenerate”.
According to the organization, more than 130 million of them have gone through its programs throughout its history, including such personalities as former President John F. Kennedy, astronaut Neil Armstrong, civil rights icon Ernest Green or film director Steven Spielberg.
This weekend, after years of complaints, the horrific scale of the abuse was revealed: some 95,000 Americans confessed to having been sexually abused in the organization. Why until now?
Paul Mones, one of the lawyers involved in litigation against Boy Scouts for nearly two decades, pointed out this Sunday to The New York Times that the prevalence of the abuses described in the cases presented is staggering, but may still reflect only a fraction of the number of actual victims.
“I knew there were a lot of cases,” Mones said in statements to New York Times. “I never thought it would come close to this number,” he added.
See more: Top 12,000 complaints against the Boy Scouts of America
The avalanche of lawsuits is a monumental task for the bankruptcy case, with which the Boy Scouts intend to reorganize and structure a compensation fund for their victims, for which a judge has imposed November 16 as the deadline for filing the complaint. of abuse.
In their filing for bankruptcy, the Boy Scouts claim they have assets worth $ 1 billion, but they also have a network of local councils that own hundreds of campgrounds and other properties across the country on the shores of lakes or in valleys, where young people are trained in exploratory skills or ethical values.
In a statement from the Boy Scouts, the organization noted that it was “devastated by the number of lives affected by past abuse” and said that for this reason they have initiated an accessible process so that they can claim compensation.
“The response we have seen from the victims has been devastating,” the organization insisted, asking for forgiveness.
Lawyers advanced this Sunday that the complainants were about 82,000, but the figure increased to 92,700 at the end of the period to file the case this Monday in a bankruptcy court in the state of Delaware (USA), where Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy this year in an attempt to survive the wave of lawsuits.
Today it has around 2.2 million members, although the number has been steadily declining since it peaked in the 1970s of around 5 million, so in 2017 they started accepting girls.
Bankruptcy filing
The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in February of this year. They did it harassed by sexual accusations. The Chapter 11 Scout petition, filed with the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, came after several states, including California, New York and New Jersey, expanded legal options for underage victims.
California law, AB 218, went into effect in January and, among other things, allowed victims to report. The reporting time has changed and the age for filing complaints has been made more flexible.
See More: So the Boy Scouts of America went bankrupt
The Boy Scouts of America “deeply care for all victims of abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who has suffered harm during their time in the Scouting program.” “We are outraged that there have been times when individuals have taken advantage of our programs to harm innocent children,” Roger Mosby, Scout president and CEO, said in a statement.
But former members of the organization are demanding that the group be closed.
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