Protestant church also accused of sexual abuse

The protestant church received 300 complaints of sexual abuse between 2005 and 2010, according to research by EO tv programme De Vijfde Dag (The Fifth Day). Of these, nine were judged well-founded.


Church authorities say their complaints line receives 20 calls about sexual abuse each year. This number rose in 2010 because of the number of articles about sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
Protestant church workers such as vicars who commit sexual abuse will now have to do public penance to their victims, Arjan Plaisier of the Protestant Church Nederland told the press.
‘We’ll have to be careful it doesn’t become a witch hunt but it’s important, for offenders and victims, that it’s not swept under the carpet,’ he said.

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