U.K. Government & Catholic Church Claim Children Can “Consent” To Sexual Abuse

Catholic churches all around the world have been accused of sex scandals, including the Vatican, which has allegedly paid an astonishing $4 billion since 1950 to settle sexual abuse claims. Far too often these stories involve priests taking advantage of their positions of authority in order to sexually abuse people, often children.

More recently, the UK government and the Catholic church have come under public scrutiny for claiming that victims of child sexual abuse “consented” to their rapes in order to avoid compensating the victims. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) establishes which victims get compensated, and they do so by determining whether or not the victim gave consent, even if the victim is a child well under the legal age limit.