The latest study revealed over 1,000 cases of sexual abuse by Swiss Catholic Church clergy and other employees, with 74% of such abuse involving minors, the University of Zurich said on Tuesday, describing the cases as "the tip of the iceberg."
The University of Zurich conducted a study commissioned by the Swiss Bishops' Conference that documented 1002 cases of sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy, church workers and religious in Switzerland from 1950 to the present, writes Euronews.
The university said in a press release that this is the first study to allow an independent research team to look into church archives for files on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church environment.
The study's historians specifically counted 1002 cases of sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy, church workers and members of religious orders in Switzerland from 1950 to the present, he added.
In addition, numerous interviews were conducted with victims of sexual abuse and other people.
In 39% of cases, the affected individuals were female, while in just under 56% of cases, the victims were male. The gender of 5% could not be determined from the sources.
With few exceptions, the accused were male, according to the study, which adds that 74% of sexual abuse cases investigated during the pilot project involved minors.
"The identified cases are undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg", write the authors of the study.
According to the university, numerous other archives, such as the archives of religious congregations, documents of diocesan bodies, and the archives of Catholic schools, dormitories, and homes, as well as state archives, could not yet be evaluated.
"The destruction of files can be tried for two dioceses", the university added.
In addition, it can be proven that 'not all reports were consistently recorded in writing and archived. Given the findings from dark field research, we assume that only a small fraction of cases were reported,' the historians write.
According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 33.7% of Swiss are Roman Catholic and 21.8% aspire to belong to the Protestant Reformed Church, while 5.5% identify themselves as Muslim and 30.9% are non-religious.
