Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said Friday. Professor Peter Adriaenssens, chairman of the commission, said the abuse in Belgium may have been even more rampant than the 200-page report suggests.
"Reality is worse than what we present here today because not everyone shares such things automatically in a first contact with the commission," he told reporters.
Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said nothing had prepared him for the stories of abuse that blighted the lives of victims.
"We don't just talk about touching. We are talking about oral and anal abuse, forced masturbation and mutual masturbation. We talk about people who have gone through serious abuse," Adriaenssens said.
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