THE DIMENSION OF TIME FROM A POST-TRAUMATIC VICTIMOLOGICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION

Abstract

Sexual crimes in an ecclesiastical context usually present a significant delay in their reporting, which generates procedural problems of evidence, as well as questions and doubts towards the victims. For example, why didn’t they count earlier? Why now, after so long?
In this order of ideas, this article offers a theoretical approach to the problem of temporality, around the denunciation of sexual crimes, and particularly those that occur in ecclesiastical contexts. In this way, it begins with a review of the evidence and the contributions of the investigation, tending to characterize sexual abuse in this context, and the variables that are associated with the difficulties that survivors face in denouncing in the terms defined by the penal system law. This is linked to the deep psychological and spiritual damage that is usually generated after a sexual crime committed by a representative of the church, added to the factors that make disclosure, notification and denunciation difficult, including the neutralization techniques used by the perpetrators and by the institution itself. Added to this are cultural variables that mediate the responses provided by the justice administration system operators. Based on this, we reflect from a victimological approach on the implications of all this in the prescription rules of this type of crime.