CBC's attack on Scouts Canada

[scouterjim]

It's nothing personal against you or any individual involved with scouts. I just feel these confidentiality agreements in the case of sexual abuse victims is morally reprehensible. It's completely unethical regardless of who is drafting them. Scouts, nevertheless, is legally allowed to do this and was probably advised by lawyers to do so in order to protect its image. Meanwhile, other victims suffer in silence because a community of victims is not allowed to publically offer their support. It really pisses me off.

i'm no fan of this either, but I am only a small voice. However, as I said, it isn't just Scouts that does this. Minor hockey, 4-H, minor soccer, etc have all done this.

[charter.rights]

i'm no fan of this either, but I am only a small voice. However, as I said, it isn't just Scouts that does this. Minor hockey, 4-H, minor soccer, etc have all done this.

If people had spoken up during the time that Indian kids were stolen, removed to schools thousands of miles away from their communities, sexually and physically abused and some murdered, there would not the legacy we have today.

The RCMP recently admitted that they conducted 60 investigations revealing 619 victims identifying 40 perpetrators within the Residential Schools system over a 48 year period. THEY didn't see a problem. Neither did the thousands of workers that worker along side the abusers. I for one can't believe some of them didn't see or know what was going on.

However, we know that over 50,000 children from 1880 to 1995 never returned home, that many were neglected and many were murdered. Had well meaning "small voices" raised an alarm back in 1907 when Dr. Peter Bryce made his report to Parliament, or when his book was published in 1922, there would not be hundreds of thousands in generations of dysfunctional Aboriginal adults today.

The point (not to get into yet another debate about native genocide) is that when good people do nothing, and say nothing then it opens the doors for pedophiles and abusers to have their way with children.

You say "We stringently watch each other." but based on the number of occurrences that pedophiles and their victims were quietly silenced, I would suggest that you don't have that capability to identify a pedophile. I would suggest that the hundreds of Scout leaders where Ralph Rowe, a former Anglican priest and Scoutmaster ( Scouts Canada kept 'confidential list' of pedophiles) operated had no idea. Yet he is known in the many organizations he was with to have molested over 100 kids (and the total could be as high as 500) under the watch of hundreds of volunteers. Very often we hear stories about pedophiles who were outstanding leaders in the community. So "watching" each other is about as valuable as taking blood samples and then dumping them down the drain.

So pedophilia and child abuse are crimes that must be punished. Then again discovering that a child is being sexually or physically abused and doing nothing is also a crime. In my mind it is far too easy to simply to pay out the victims and quietly dismiss the perpetrators, in order to protect the Scouting Organization. Scouts (like the Red Cross was in the tainted blood scandal) should be sued into oblivion, with the Board of Directors who developed those policies facing criminal or civil penalties. We cannot let this go such that everyone believes that it is OK just to hide the truth and quietly bury the victims in money.

As I said before, I appreciate that you are an upstanding volunteer, as there are many. However, the Scouting Organization failed the victims, as well as the thousands of volunteers and parents that had trust in them. And for that they should face the ultimate penalty. Death by dismemberment.

[cybercoma]

I'm thinking there needs to be strict regulations about when a case can be settled out of court and when it can't. If a child is molested, I don't think anyone, not just Scouts, should be allowed to pay off the parents and make them all sign a confidentiality agreement. First of all, to my mind that's nothing more than prostituting out your child for a massive pay day. Your kid was molested for Christ sake and you collect a paycheck from that and sign an agreement on your child's behalf that he won't say anything for the rest of his life about it? That's unconscionable to me. But what about those that came out about it over the age of 18 and settled themselves. Shouldn't they have the choice? Again, I believe that in situations such as this where children were molested, you're giving the victim the option of making it all go away by offering them a handsome paycheck. Depending on a person's financial situation they may really need the money, so again what is being done is completely unethical. Moreover, a person that has been suffering from this abuse may not be willing to fight about it for months or years in court battles, reliving it again and again throughout the entire ordeal. The abusers have the upper hand in this situation. In other words, I don't think the victims themselves are in a position to really make this decision soundly. In any case that involves serious criminal activities, like molesting children, murder, abuse, whatever, it should be illegal for the abusers to settle out of court. At the absolute minimum, if not that, it should definitely be illegal for them to draft confidentiality agreements in those cases.

[guyser]

I'm thinking there needs to be strict regulations about when a case can be settled out of court and when it can't. If a child is molested, I don't think anyone, not just Scouts, should be allowed to pay off the parents and make them all sign a confidentiality agreement.

I am willing to bet it is kept quiet for reasons of embarassment, stress, throw in a touch of relief due to money, and perhaps inability to prove in court.

[charter.rights]

I am willing to bet it is kept quiet for reasons of embarassment, stress, throw in a touch of relief due to money, and perhaps inability to prove in court.

More likely it is to protect the institution.

[cybercoma]

I am willing to bet it is kept quiet for reasons of embarassment, stress, throw in a touch of relief due to money, and perhaps inability to prove in court.

In that case the agreement is unnecessary as the victim is choosing not to speak out. I'm not suggesting that victims should be forced to speak out. What I'm suggesting is that no organization should use their money and legal clout to muzzle victims of despicable crimes.

[guyser]

More likely it is to protect the institution.

Methinks you have that backward, at least as my post goes.

The person maligned is the one who accepts the money, it is thier choice to go public or not, the offer is made from the defendant, but the reasons for aceptance are all theirs, not the institution.

[charter.rights]

Methinks you have that backward, at least as my post goes.

The person maligned is the one who accepts the money, it is thier choice to go public or not, the offer is made from the defendant, but the reasons for aceptance are all theirs, not the institution.

Not quite.

Institutions make settlement offers all the time. They do it to avoid not only the costs of lengthy trials, but for the most pay to avoid public disclosure of their abuses. Otherwise, there would be no need for non-disclosure clauses.

In this case, the indication in the media is that Scouts Canada made the offers to silence the victims and protect their reputations. Red Cross got away with the same thing before the final end of the tainted blood scandal wouldn't die.

Keep in mind that trials tend to victimize the victims all over again. If the offer of settlement (which the courts encourage) is substantial, then victims are often enticed into accepting the money, rather than being put on display over and over again, in the courts and on the front pages of major newspapers. Can you imagine what it might be like for a 12 year old to have to tell a bunch of strangers about being buggered by his caretaker on a camping weekend? Few 12 year olds have the capacity to endure such re-victimization for the sake of putting a pervert behind bars.

[cybercoma]

And the courts as a rule don't think about what's best for the victims or the community. They're only interested in accountability and punishment of offenders. Of course it's not as black and white as that, but in general this is the way the system operates. What's worse is that the current federal government is interested in pushing us even more towards the crime & punishment model, which would only serve to make these kinds of situations worse. The courts need to be brought out of the dark ages and into modern era where they not only promote accountability on the part of offenders, but social services and support for families and communities that are affected. Allowing institutions to bribe people that were sexually assaulted and molested as children to keep their mouths shut flies in the face of a judicial model that promotes support for victims and communities.

[Guest Manny]

Without legal actions or consiquence, those crimes can be repeated again.

[cybercoma]

Manny's right. It's like saying, it's ok to molest children as long as you pay them enough money to stfu about it. It's disgusting and an affront to society.