In an exclusive interview with Helmut Kramer, founder of the support organisation for victims of sexual assault by religious members, La Red de Sobrevivientes, talks about the importance of understanding and fighting for the human rights of children.
How did you get involved in humanist campaigns?
I entered the humanistic world 21 years ago. I lived in Antofagasta, and was going through a strong personal crisis. I was always closely related to political issues and at that time there was an electoral campaign and as humanists had something like three seconds on television, that is, nothing, it occurred to them to carry out one of the most transgressive campaigns that have been carried out in Chile, which was showing naked bodies on TV with the campaign of the “empelotos”. They were naked, but they linked it to violence, to discrimination, it had a political meaning and it caught my attention a lot. They had a website. At that moment I got in and wrote on the page, there they contacted me and from there I began to enter Humanism. That was 21 years ago, a long time ago.
So what can you tell me about your organisation?
La Red de Sobrevivientes (The Survivor Network) is an organisation that was born five years ago, initially formed by men and women who suffered abuse in an ecclesiastical environment, because we were abused by priests or nuns, with a wide diversity of people. With the aim of promoting in Chile the creation of a State Commission to thoroughly investigate the history of ecclesiastical abuses, to establish a historical truth and to propose reparation measures for the victims. That was mainly it. We made some attempts with the previous government of Sebastián Piñera, which was not too bad. We experienced an absolute refusal to a proposal of this type, but over time we also began to work with activists, people who were abused in other environments, in settings of care homes that are run by the State, which many times also handed them over to individuals, but remained the responsibility of the State.
We have been in contact with people who were abused in sports clubs by their coaches and with people who were abused in their Scouts groups. So we started working on what we have called abuse in institutional settings. Currently, the work we have done has been listening to victims. The number of people who, at first, need someone who lived a similar situation to listen to them is incredible. These are people who today are with their ghosts, and not even their partners know what have they been through and need to express in some way what they suffered, what they have lived through all these years, They need someone that doesn’t question them, someone who doesn’t judgement them based on what they experienced, just listen to them and understand that the only person who may not make a judgement is someone who lived through the same thing because you don’t need them to explain anything to you.
So we have done this work, but our main goal has been to make this situation visible in Chilean society as a human rights problem, not just a judicial problem, but something much deeper: Tt is a problem of violation of human rights, as sexual abuse is a form of torture.
And that has gone very deep into Chilean society. Fewer and fewer people are questioning this vision and, along with this, we have been making progress with the current government of Gabriel Boric. We managed to get Gabriel Boric to say in his campaign that he is going to work to create this Commission and, currently, we are in talks and meetings with ministers or sub-secretaries of the government, advancing in that direction, which is the main cause of our tranquillity. Progress can be made with a government that isn’t going to close its doors and that understands that what we are proposing doesn’t only have to do with the victims, but has to do with the whole country.
What countries does the organisation cover?
We are in Chile, but there are networks of survivors in Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. The one in Colombia is quite new, but there is some level of organisation. In Spain, due to its geographical system, we understand that there’s more than one organisation. We are at least close to one of them. In Australia, Ireland, and Canada there have also been organisations. The ones that I name you are organisations that have been organised for abuse of ecclesiastical environments.
But for example, in Chile, we work with organisations of abuse. There are people who work on abuse in the home environment, and people who were abused at home by family members or friends of family members. In the Chilean case, at least, they have also grouped together and we have been working with them. In fact, we worked with them at the time on the proposal for the right to time, which has to do with the imprescriptibility or end of the statute of limitations for crimes of sexual abuse of minors. And there we worked Derecho al Tiempo (Right to Time), which is an organization of survivors and activists that worked so that there’s no more child sexual abuse. We work together with activists who do not belong to organisations, but who are in a close relationship.
Look, there’s something we’ve learned from the experience of countries where there have already been organisations, where there are truth, justice, and reparation commissions, that the only way to make these commissions come true is for the State to take charge and create them. Is that the survivors organise themselves and begin to fight? If that doesn’t happen, there’s no progress.
That’s very clear and one of the great demands that has been raised, not only in Chile but in general in all countries, is the need for comprehensive sexual education. We have had big clashes with the right-wing and with the most conservative ultra-right, but we see sex education as a powerful and effective tool for empowering the rights in childhood and as a way of putting up a wall that helps to stop sexual abuse.
So what has the organisation achieved so far?
What we have achieved is to make sexual abuse visible as a violation of human rights, and position it on the scale of human rights. Second, understand that this problem of abuse is a political problem. Not necessarily understood in the partisan system, but rather in the need to develop policies that focus, firstly, on the defence of children and their positioning as beings with rights and on their real and effective protection. Secondly, that works in the care of those of us who have been victims of abuse are needed, in rules that help to repair the damage that has been caused and this is because it has been understood that abuse is a State problem, not a problem between individuals. I believe that these two things, which have been positioned very strongly in Chilean society, have been two of the great advances that we were missing.
When we talk about the Commission, we say that it has two important aspects: one is truth, justice and reparation, which will unite; and the other that are the acts of non-repetition or non-repetition. And non-repetition has nothing to do with those of us who have already suffered abuse. It has to do with childhood, with those who have not suffered it and we don’t want them to suffer, and that implies a cultural change. A change in public policies, a change of perspective that sets aside the adult-centric gaze and puts human rights, gender rights, and childhood rights as a priority, with that as a central value that, as well as a humanist and as a soloist, he places the human being as a central value.
In 2005, an article published by Western People proposed a relationship between clerical celibacy and sexual abuse. To what extent do you think this can be true?
That’s a very strong discussion that occurs among those who denounce and fight against ecclesiastical sexual abuse. There are those who argue that there’s a direct relationship between celibacy and abuse, and there are those who believe that there’s not necessarily a direct relation. I personally believe that there is. I think there’s a link between not knowing how to work with internal energy, and there are religions that practice celibacy and have very few reports of abuse. In the case of the Catholic Church, when they take the vow of celibacy, it’s like they block their sexuality. I am not referring to the sexual act itself, but to pretend like his genitals don’t exist, as they block it and it doesn’t unfold correctly. I think they need help to understand that you can be celibate, but that doesn’t stop you from being a sexual being.
I think that’s where the real problem lies. People end up blaming and saying crazy things like that the problem is that they are gay. When in fact the vast majority, and there are world studies that confirm this, that has nothing to do with being homosexual or heterosexual, it has nothing to do with that at all. Personally, I have never agreed with the thesis that it has nothing to do with the fact that they mentally block their sexuality. The blockade always, always, always, always works out somehow. It is impossible to block it for life. It will always come out and it will come out violently.
Given that more than 80% of the victims of sexual assault by members of the Church are men, can we somehow relate this to the attempt to completely eradicate homosexuality within the Church?
Yes, there may be some relation with the Catholic Church, but it cannot be concluded, because we also have abusive women. It has to do with the Church, where girls, and minors, have also been abused. So, there are certain special characteristics of abuse that are worth studying. One has to do with the relationship between man-to-man and woman-to-woman abuse, and it has to do with something deeper, which is related to the breakdown of the belief system. Don’t forget that all of us who suffered ecclesiastical abuse were Catholics at that time. And the situation of abuse breaks the belief, one of the strongest things of the human being, from there one develops in the world and that is why we have brothers and sisters who have committed suicide because that breaks and you fall apart.
We have high rates of people who fail to establish healthy relationships, who fail to relate well to power, who have problems with their workplace, etc…
A lot of the things we’re talking about are based on our opinions, but let’s address some studies. Since most crimes are committed from a man to a man or a woman to a woman. Do you think that if there were more women in higher positions in religious institutions, some crimes could have been prevented?
Look, it can help, as long as there’s a cultural change. The Catholic Church has certain characteristics. First, it is one of the most undemocratic institutions in the world. From the election of the Pope downwards, everything is hitchhiking. It’s a deeply patriarchal institution and that is rooted. Once I was talking with a former priest, he resigned from the priesthood precisely because he was persecuted for denouncing abuse within the Church and he told me that the mode hasn’t changed since the fourth century.
So they can have more or fewer women, but if that doesn’t change, the past tells us that a woman with a patriarchal concept can be as or more harmful than a man with a patriarchal position. So, if there is no such change, an interesting change, nothing will happen. They told me that in Concepción there were base communities that were doing their liturgical acts, their mass, without priests.
I thought that they are breaking with power structures, those things and the patriarchal system between men and women, that is, this type of thing can give indications of real changes because moreover, they come from the grassroots. If the Pope, the current Pope, Jorge Bergoglio, Francisco, as they want to say, is a cover-up of sexual abuse in Argentina, a cover-up, and he was an abuser, all the work he has done as Pope has been political marketing, without making real changes; so if he says I’m going to be able to open up more women in Church, for us it doesn’t mean any change because it comes from the top down. But if the change occurs from the bases and they begin to democratise the institution in every way, one can say that there could be a change here.
What are the main reasons why victims do not report crimes?
Several. The reasons why victims don’t report include shame and the feeling of guilt for having been abused. That’s the main reason.
Second, in the case of abused men, and this has to do with the macho culture and the fear of being called homosexual for having been abused. It’s silly, but it’s real. Fear of being cataloged as being homosexual for having been abused. Also, in many cases, I have seen men who already have a family established, who have an entire social system established and are still afraid that if that social system knows that they have been abused, they will collapse. Fear of losing that status. Now I have seen cases, and I know of cases, of men who have denounced and then their wives left them, precisely because they were abused and they end up divorcing. That is also a reality. Those are the main reasons. There is a group of survivors that continues to be part of the Church and believes that if they denounce it, they will harm the Church, that is, they will put the institution before the situation of abuse they experienced.