Sexual abuse committed within religious institutions is a problem that affected 1.13% of the adult population of Spain. That is the conclusion of a survey involving a sample of 8,013 people conducted in 2023, which helped shape the Informe sobre los abusos sexuales en el ámbito de la Iglesia católica y el papel de los poderes públicos: Una respuesta necesaria [Report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the role of the authorities: A necessary response], which was published by the Spanish Ombuds Office in 2024.

The authors of the report call for a response to the victims' suffering and loneliness, which was covered up by a conspiracy of silence, in various ways and for many years. With this objective in mind, the Government of Spain reached an agreement with the Catholic Church for a reparations system providing redress for victims of sexual abuse in early 2026.

In order to protect and provide answers for people who suffered from all types of institutional child abuse, and not only sexual abuse, within the Catholic Church and elsewhere, the study Meeting victims' needs in institutional child abuse: A proposal for evaluating reparation programmes seeks to create a system for evaluating reparations programmes for victims. The author is Laura Arantegui, a member of the Empirical and Applied Victimology (VICRIM) research group and the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).

The article looks at what the literature identifies as good practices and proposes a basic framework for evaluation that can be applied at various stages of reparations programmes for victims. The tool, which is structured and objective, aims to overcome common shortcomings in the design of these programmes and to ensure that they provide the victims with a satisfactory response.

The importance of focusing on victims

According to the Ombuds Office's report, for many years the Catholic Church viewed sexual abuse as "more of a sin by the abuser than as harm done to the victim". In order to change this, reparations programmes need to focus on the victims.

"As a society, we have an obligation to protect, to offer a voice, and to provide answers to people who have suffered, especially in cases where their victimization is linked to one or more institutions' actions or their failure to act," said Arantegui. "This need increases and becomes urgent in many of these cases, when the experiences of the victims have also been permanently and deliberately silenced by institutions and by a society that has failed to take action, at best, and is complicit, at worst."

The author's interest in this field of study was sparked when she was working on her doctoral thesis about how single mothers and their children were abused at the Maternitat Hospital in Les Corts, Barcelona, in the 1960s. She came across the problem of child abuse in institutions and was able to study how various reparations programmes had operated in various countries around the world.

"I identified some major shortcomings that could have been avoided if the design and implementation of these programmes had been studied and assessed beforehand. By definition, they aim to give victims satisfactory redress for their traumatic experiences. The only way to evaluate them is to find out the extent to which they achieve their objective," explained Arantegui, who is also affiliated to the UOC-DIGIT research centre.

"When they get involved with this type of programme, people who have had a traumatic experience have a number of expectations, and above all they expect to finally be listened to and for their experiences to be validated. A system that can evaluate these programmes, and can do so quickly and easily, is a powerful tool for creating fairer and more responsible mechanisms for reparations, for helping victims to get their dignity back and for their reconciliation with the institution and with society."

A points-based evaluation model

The evaluation model designed by Arantegui divides the evaluation of reparations programmes into five different phases: an analysis of the initial commission, the subsequent investigation to establish what took place, the proposed reparations, the extent to which the provisions for these reparations are fulfilled and, finally, the real implementation of the programme in terms of the victim's involvement. "It is essential to cover all these dimensions,not only because they are very different, but also because a loss of quality can occur in any one of them, impacting the victims' level of satisfaction," Arantegui said.

An average of five items, which are rated from 0 to 3 points, is created in each dimension. This makes it possible to determine the overall score for a specific programme and the scores for its different phases, which means that shortcomings can be corrected during the process. Furthermore, the model is flexible, it focuses on basic common characteristics and it can be adapted to different contexts.

"This is the first systematic way of evaluating these programmes; this points scale is groundbreaking and it is an entirely new contribution in this field. That is the reason why it is so important, in addition to its ease of application and its ability to provide consistent results, which really help to improve how these programmes are designed and implemented," said Arantegui.

Potential obstacles, opportunities and next steps

The obstacles that hinder these programmes from responding to victims' needs effectively include those that stem directly from the institutions themselves. "These institutions have two basic concerns that determine their attitude and restrict their response: their fear of serious financial consequences as a result of possible compensation payments to the victims and the reputational damage arising from the exposure of what has taken place. As I see it, their main concern is financial, as many victims may not have disclosed their experiences, and the potential costs of compensation cannot be predicted beforehand with any accuracy," Arantegui said.

To address challenges like these, Arantegui hopes that the results of this study will be used by institutions to evaluate programmes, especially in Spain. She will be sending her work to the Spanish Ombuds Office and to those responsible for the recent agreement signed between the Spanish Government and the Church concerning the reparations system for victims of sexual abuse.

In the future, she hopes to conduct a macro-study which will apply the points-based system to all the known reparations programmes worldwide. "In the near future, I plan to apply this system to the peace process in Colombia, where reparations for victims have begun to be implemented, which will further validate its effectiveness," she said.


This project is aligned with the UOC's research mission of Planetary health and well-being, and contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3, Good Health and Well-being, and 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.


Transformative, impactful research

At the UOC, we see research as a strategic tool to advance towards a future society that is more critical, responsible and nonconformist. With this vision, we conduct applied research that's interdisciplinary and linked to the most important social, technological and educational challenges.

The UOC’s over 500 researchers and more than 50 research groups are working in five research units focusing on five missions: lifelong learning; ethical and human-centred technology; digital transition and sustainability; culture for a critical society, and digital health and planetary well-being.

The university's Hubbik platform fosters knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship in the UOC community.

More information: www.uoc.edu/en/research