“The report said that the level of emotional abuse of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by religious and lay staff was “disturbing” and that the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children.”

So says this article which provides an overview of a Irish Commission into Child Abuse report:

The report, that runs to thousands of pages, outlined a harrowing account of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted on young people who attended schools and institutions from 1940 onwards.

It found that corporal punishment was “pervasive, severe, arbitrary and unpredictable” in the institutions where “children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.

The article also observed:

Sexual abuse was “endemic in boys institutions”, involving such abuse by some staff members and some older boys. Sexual abuse “was not systematic in girls’ schools”, though girls were subjected to predatory sexual abuse by male employees (of the institutions) or visitors or in outside placements.

Sounds like men abused the boys, and men abused the girls.

The Executive Summary of the report is here. The report itself can be read here.

–Ann Bartow