Catholic women in India to address abuse

A group of mainly Catholic Indian women have announced steps for addressing sexual abuse of women by clergy. 

"We should move outside the Church to seek answers to abuse cases. We should treat this problem as a crime and take recourse to the law," said Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a lay woman theologian.

Ms Gajiwala, who heads the women's collective Satyashodak ("seekers of truth"), made these remarks at a recent national seminar that studied the impact of religion and culture on the empowerment of women from an Indian perspective.

About 50 people, including a few men, attended the September meeting in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian State of Telangana.

The meeting was organised by Streevani ("voice of women"), an NGO managed by the Holy Spirit nuns, along with Satyashodak, and three other groups engaged in women's empowerment.

The seminar coincidentally began on the same day the Standing Committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India ended a three-day bi-annual meeting at Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), 570kms south of Hyderabad. There the committee approved a set of guidelines to tackle clergy abuse cases. The guidelines have yet to be released.

But attendees of the Hyderabad seminar aren't waiting.

Ms Gajiwala chaired a session on the last day that drafted a plan of action for the organisers in the year ahead. It decided to form a working group to deal with sexual abuse in the Church.

"We should not wait for the official Church to come up with solutions. We need to draft a policy that is controlled by women and address the problem when it arises," she said, urging the group to take definite steps.