During an interactive dialogue with the Special Representative, Advocacy Officer at Humanists International, Leon Langdon, delivered a statement highlighting the Vatican’s breaches of its human rights and reporting obligations.
The Vatican – known as the “Holy See” at the UN – is an Observer State of the UN, and has signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture. However, the Committees overseeing implementation of these conventions has found the Holy See to be in breach of both, on many counts.
The statement highlighted the fact that the Committee on the Rights of the Child has found grave failings by the Holy See in terms of violence against the child, including torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, corporal punishment, and sexual abuse, by its clergy. Whilst the Committee against Torture has established that the Holy See had overseen violence against children, including through their sale and abduction by its clergy.
Despite these grave violations, both Committees are still awaiting overdue follow-up reports from the Holy See and indeed evidence that any remedial action has taken place.
The statement said, “It is essential that the Holy See, particularly as an Observer State of the UN, is fully accountable when it comes to human rights obligations, including the rights of the child.”
In 2021, a group of UN experts expressed their “utmost concern about the numerous allegations around the world of sexual abuse and violence committed by members of the Catholic Church against children” and urged the Holy See to take all necessary measures to stop and prevent the reoccurrence of violence and sexual abuse against children in Catholic institutions, and to ensure those responsible are held to account and reparations are paid to victims. As the Humanists International statement pointed out, “Again, this has yet to happen.”
Featured image by Seifeddine Dridi on Unsplash.