Victims
challenge new BoysTown officials
They urge
"aggressive outreach" to "those still suffering"
Group
wants all predators listed on BoysTown website
And it
pushes officials to send mailings to former
students
WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a footpath news
conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters
will
- Urge officials at BoysTown to use all the resources at
their disposal to find former students who were abused at the charity’s
Beaudesert school between the 1960s until
2001
- Disclose the names of all known predators who worked
or lived at the school and post their names publicly,
and
- Send mass mailings to the families of all who attended the
school during that time period in order to find others who were
abused
WHEN
Wednesday November 28 at
11:00 a.m.
WHERE
In front of BoysTown, Suite 5 Cordova St, Milton, QLD (
between Parkview and Mayneview)
WHO
One or two members of an
international support group called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused
by Priests) including an American woman who is the
organisation’s president and
founder.
WHY
A former residential
school for boys near Brisbane has recently
been rocked by an abuse scandal that spans four decades and involves a large
Catholic order.
The BoysTown Beaudesert school,
located southwest of Brisbane, was established in 1961 by the De La Salle
Brothers, a large order of Catholic priests. The school recently came under fire
following a 60 Minutes report in whichformer students of the school described physical and
emotional abuse at the school that had gone on
for decades. The new administration of the charity has publicly backed the victims, but an international
support group for victims of clergy abuse is pushing for further
action.
Leaders of SNAP are calling on
officials at BoysTown to use all of their resources to reach out to past
students and their families, to inform them
of the wide ranging abuse allegations and to urge anyone who saw,
suspected or suffered child sex crimes to come forward immediately. Specifically, they are asking
BoysTown to send out mass mailings to every person who attended the
Beaudesert school between 1961 and
2001.
Given how wide ranging the abuse was SNAP believes that there
are others still suffering in silence and shame and wants BoysTown officials to
find other victims and work to ease their suffering.
SNAP is also calling
on BoysTown to post the names of the credibly
accused abusers on its websites. This step, SNAP says, is the quickest,
simplest, and cheapest way to spread information about abusers and to encourage
others to come forward.
CONTACT
Barbara Blaine, SNAP President and Founder (+1 312 399 4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org)
Nicky Davis, SNAP Australia Leader (0422 538 440, nicky@nickydavis.com.au)
Mark Fabbro, SNAP Australia Leader (0411 390 850, survivorsclergy@gmail.com)