Chilling report: Children raped for years

A comprehensive investigation by The Washington Post (WP) has exposed the systematic sexual abuse suffered by Native American children in Catholic schools.

The findings of the WP investigation, based on first-hand witnesses and historical records, have been described as the latest link in a chain of sexual abuse cases at church-run schools, similar to those previously brought to light in Canada and Europe during different periods.

In the report, numerous Native American victims of sexual abuse, whose names and testimonies were included, recounted the traumas they experienced to the reporters.

SEXUAL ABUSE, RAPE, PHYSICAL VIOLENCE...

It was stated that tens of thousands of Native American children were separated from their families between 1819 and 1969 to be "adapted to the culture of white Americans" and were placed in over 500 government boarding schools across different states.

It was noted that at least 80 of these institutions were Catholic schools, and that records regarding sexual abuse, rape, physical violence, and other incidents resulting in death at these schools have mostly been lost or distorted.

The report stated that almost all investigations into sexual abuse were conducted in the 1960s, and that more than a thousand children were abused, with at least 122 priests accused of rape as part of the investigations.

TESTIMONIES OF SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS ARE CHILLING

The report also included the testimony of a Native American witness named Clarita Vargas, who was forcibly placed by the government in a Catholic school called St. Mary's Mission in Washington state in 1968.

Vargas told WP reporters that she was systematically sexually abused by a Catholic priest during her first 3 years at the school, and that even though she is 64 years old today, she still has not been able to overcome the trauma of that period.

Similarly, another Native American named Jay, who was placed in a Catholic school in Montana in 1965, stated that the priest who raped him "told him he would go to hell if he told anyone else about it."

Geraldine Charbonneau Dubourt, a Native American who was placed in a Catholic school in South Dakota, also recounted that she was raped and subsequently forced to have an abortion to remove the baby.

News Source: AA