Unlike in many other nations where the government or the Church itself has opened an investigation into such abuses, Spain has only recently made moves to follow suit with lawmakers in March backing the creation of an independent commission.

The independent panel is made up of 20 people, mostly experts, but does not include representatives of the Church.

The aim is to “prepare a report on sexual violence within the Catholic Church and the role of the public authorities”, it said, indicating that the panel included 17 experts “with experience in victimology, in the care of victims and legal knowledge”.

With no official statistics on child sex abuse within the Church, Spain's El País newspaper began investigating allegations in 2018. It has so far counted nearly 1,600 victims. In March, the Spanish Church said it had discovered more than 500 cases of child sex abuse through a complaints procedure launched in 2020.

https://www.thelocal.es/20220705/panel-begins-probing-child-abuse-within-spain-church/