The US Boy Scouts of America agreed to a US $85 million dollar settlement to groups representing 60,000 men who had brought sexual abuse claims against it. This abuse occurred when they were children or adolescents while members of the BSA.
The abuse of boys increased in the last eight years when the BSA agreed to accept LGBTQ members and scout leaders. It affirmed everything from transgenderism to female members, thereby abandoning the principles on which the organization was based. The BSA became instead, a moral free-for-all, even descending to distributing contraceptives to adolescents at its international jamboree last summer in the US. The BSA is now financially ruined and publicly scorned, but the latter apparently hasn’t caused the BSA to change its behaviour. According to the former youth protection director of the BSA, in a speech to the U.S. National Press Council in October 2021, the BSA had become less receptive to needed reforms. He urged Congress to investigate the cover ups of past abuse by the BSA, as well as the dangers that the organization still posed to children.
Boy Scouts Canada
Scouts Canada, which is a completely separate organization from the BSA, sought to hide its financial sexual abuse settlements by insisting that sex abuse victims sign out of court confidential agreements. This prevents the victims from revealing the amount paid for the abuse or the facts that led to the settlement.
It is known, however, that in 2011, Scouts Canada hired an auditing firm to review 486 cases of sexual abuse, misconduct or assault that occurred within the organization during a period of 64 years.
It is also known that, in August 2018, a $4.5 million negligence suit was launched against Scouts Canada in connection to a sexual abuse claim by a Brockville, Ontario man. In his court challenge, the accuser claimed that Scouts Canada had at least two decades of records and data sufficient to indicate that the organization had a widespread problem with the sexual abuse of minors.
It is also known that, between 2016 and 2018, five sex abuse law suits alone were filed against Scouts Canada, which are currently before the courts.