WASHINGTON: The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy yesterday in what it said was an effort to safeguard compensation payouts for sexual abuse victims. The organization has been accused of covering up generations of abuse inflicted on thousands of its young members and failing to do enough to root out pedophiles using the youth movement to prey on minors over its 110-year history.

Bankruptcy proceedings will help the Boy Scouts to "equitably compensate" victims through the establishment of a victims' compensation trust and allow the organization to continue at a local level, a statement from the group said. "The BSA cares deeply about all victims of abuse and sincerely apologizes to anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting," chief executive Roger Mosby said in the statement.

The organization estimates liabilities of up to $1 billion, according to court filings lodged yesterday. The national Boy Scouts council and its affiliated local councils together hold nearly $5 billion in assets including landholdings, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month. Local councils hold around two-thirds of the organization's assets, which the Journal said could be shielded from creditors under the bankruptcy plan, limiting the group's overall exposure to sexual abuse lawsuits.

More than 12,000 members of the Boy Scouts had been sexually abused in the organization since 1944, victims' lawyer Jeff Anderson said last year. He also said files maintained by the Boy Scouts listed more than 7,800 alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse. The existence of that documentation-known as the "perversion files" and listing scoutmasters or troop leaders accused of sexual abuse-was first revealed in a 2012 court case.

At the time the organization admitted its response to the scandal had been "plainly insufficient, inappropriate or wrong", and said it had overhauled its procedures to protect members. "The BSA today has some of the strongest, expert-informed youth protection policies found in any youth-serving organization, including mandatory youth protection training and background checks for all volunteers and staff," the organization said yesterday.

Growing number of lawsuits
Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America currently has around 2.2 million members between the ages of five and 21. Lawsuits against the group have multiplied in recent years, thanks in part to state legislative changes that have increased the statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse against minors. The bankruptcy plan was first mooted in 2018, the Journal reported, as the organization struggled with declining members and rising costs.

Abused in Scouting, a network of law firms representing victims, said the bankruptcy proceedings could spell the end of the Boy Scouts. "It's going to be a mess. If it takes a long period of time, it's an open question whether the Boy Scouts will have any resources to keep operating while the bankruptcy is pending," attorney Tim Kosnoff said in a statement for the lawyers' network earlier in February. The Boy Scouts had attempted to stay solvent by raising membership fees and mortgaging properties, Abused in Scouting said. - AFP