Newly launched website details alleged sexual abuse by clergy

SPRING VALLEY, NY—Author and quantitative analyst G.R. Pafumi announces the launch of his newest website, VictimsSpeakDB.org. It is derived from the proprietary Survivor Accounts of Catholic Clergy Abuse, Denial, Accountability and Silence (SACCADAS) database. The site provides comprehensive analyses of the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in 49 countries on six continents. VictimsSpeakDB.org includes statistical data detailing the abuse of over 9,000 victims molested by nearly 3,000 Catholic clergy, dating as far back as the 1920s, and as recently as 2017. The launch of the new website was timed to coincide with pending state legislation to expand the SOL (statute of limitations) for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Key findings of the SACCADAS database include:

Abuse patterns in Australia/New Zealand and Canada mirror patterns observed in the United States, including the gender of the abused and the decades in which the greatest abuse occurred (1960-1989).

The average age at the time the abuse was first reported was 43 years for victims who came forward in the 21st century. Their average delay in reporting that abuse was 29 years after the abuse ended. This is strong evidence as to why the statute of limitations to report sex crimes against children must be expanded.

There is a spike in first reporting of abuse at ages 30-49 for men (nearly half of the male victims) and ages 40-59 for women (nearly half of the female victims).

Three times as many male abuse victims (8.4 percent) became substance abusers as compared with females.

1 out of 4 molested male minors were altar boys, while only 1 out of 100 females were altar servers.

Nearly 10 percent of clergy abusers continued to abuse after their first accusation, in some case for more than 25 years after.

Attempted suicide rates were 5.3 percent of clergy-abuse victims, as compared with 8.6 percent in the general population. However actual suicides identified in the SACCADAS database were over 30 times the rate in the general population (based on Centers for Disease Control–CDC–data).

Over 80 percent of the victims abused by priests were male. Nearly 90 percent of the victims abused by brothers were male. Brothers represented nearly one third of clergy abusers in Australia/New Zealand, as compared with 6 percent in the United States. This is the result of a greater number of Catholic children who resided in Catholic boarding schools. Well over half of the victims abused by nuns were female. Only 4 percent of clergy molesters abused children of both sexes.

The website is both fee-free and ad-free. It does not require registration, although there is a Contact Us feature for users who wish to be notified about major updates to the site. There is also a companion VictimsSpeakDB Blog. It permits registration for users who wish to keep apprised of ongoing research studies derived from the SACCADAS database. (PR)