Boy Scouts of America sued over sexual abuse of children

With the Vatican in the grips of a pedophilia scandal, the spotlight in America is being turned on US scouting, which is accused of keeping quiet about decades of alleged sexual aggression by its leaders against young boys.

The Boy Scouts of America are being sued by a man who said he was abused five times when he was between 11 and 12 years old by his then-scoutmaster in Portland, Oregon.

The identity of the alleged victim, now 37, is being concealed for fear of reprisals related to the 29-million-dollar sex abuse lawsuit he brought against the Boy Scouts of America and its local Portland branch, the Cascade Pacific Council.

The plaintiff decried what he described as the group's silence on sexual abuses targeting children and teenagers at the hands of trusted scout leaders.

The alleged abuser, Timur Dykes, now 53, admitted after the incidents that he was a serial molester. He has been convicted three times for sex abuse against boys.

Scouts have convicted before US courts time and again, but this trial has gained more notoriety as fresh accusations of sex abuse hit the Catholic Church, said Patrick Boyle, editor of the website youthtoday.com.

"Institutional child sex abuse is really on everyone's mind right now," said Boyle, author of the book "Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution."

He said the court case "offers people another example of how institutions and organizations have so much sex abuse and have been hiding sex abuse for so long."

The trial is unique in that it has forced the Boy Scouts, which celebrates its centennial this year, to submit to the court for the first time in 20 years documents detailing sexual abuse recorded by the organization.

Although the group has been sued dozens of times over sex abuse, most cases settled out of court, which ensured the records were kept confidential.

"The files were created almost a century ago. So it shows what the scout officials knew, how many kids were abused ... where the abuse occurs," Boyle told AFP. More

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