Some 82,000 victims of sexual abuse at the American scouts association Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have come forward in recent months. Monday evening is the deadline for victims to qualify for compensation from a fund set up by the BSA, after the scouts’ association filed for protection from creditors in February.
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The association was faced with financial pressure, including legal costs related to the allegations of sexual abuse. The BSA then set up a compensation fund for the victims. How much money is in the fund is unknown. The BSA has about a billion dollars in assets.
The BSA states that the proposed compensation fund for the victims is the best way to compensate them, in “a way that balances and protects their identities.” The association still encouraged victims to file a claim.
The sexual abuse revelations at the BSA came out in the open in 2012. The Los Angeles Times newspaper published thousands of pages of documents showing that the association had covered decades of sexual abuse committed by thousands of volunteers. Then there were 5,000 ‘files of perversion’, corresponding to the number of suspected perpetrators. Until then, the management of the BSA had kept that information secret. Often no report was made to the authorities.
During a trial in Minnesota in late January 2019, an expert appointed by the BSA to compile such files said he identified 7,819 suspected perpetrators and 12,254 victims between 1944 and 2016. Numbers that were higher than the previous estimates. In recent years, lawsuits against the BSA have increased, in part due to legislative changes in several US states that extend the statute of limitations for sexual assault on minors.
The scouts association was founded in 1910 and has 2.2 million members between the ages of 5 and 21.
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