ONLY ON AP Women claim Opus Dei group abused power скачать в хорошем качестве

ONLY ON AP Women claim Opus Dei group abused power

(12 Nov 2021) A group of 42 women, all of whom are former employees of religious organization Opus Dei, have filed a complaint at the Vatican for alleged labor exploitation, and abuses of power and of conscience. The women are Argentine and Paraguayan citizens who worked for the movement in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Italy and Kazakhstan between 1974 and 2015. All of the women maintain they were never paid for a day's work at the organization. Lucía Giménez still feels the pain in her knees that she felt at age 16 when she scrubbed the floors of the men's bathroom in the Opus Dei residence in Argentina's capital for hours without pay. Giménez, now 56, says when she joined the conservative Catholic group in her native Paraguay, she and her family were promised that she would receive a higher education. But instead of math or history, she was trained in cooking, cleaning and other household chores to serve in Opus Dei centers, residences and retirement homes. For 18 years, she worked as a numerary assistant, as the women who look after the domestic needs of the Opus Dei residences and centers are called. She says she washed clothes, scrubbed bathrooms and attended to the group's members during 12-hour workdays, when Argentina's labor laws establish a maximum of eight hours, and that her breaks were limited to the hours of eating and praying. Despite her hard labor, she says: "I never saw a bill in my hands." Opus Dei - Latin for "work of God" - was founded by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928, and is present in about 70 countries with 90,000 members. The lay group, which was greatly favored by St. John Paul II who canonized Escriva in 2002, has a unique status in the church known as a personal prelature and reports directly to the pope. Most members are laymen and women with secular jobs and families who strive to "sanctify ordinary life." Other members are priests or celibate lay people. The complaint alleges that the women, often minors at the time, labored under "manifestly illegal conditions: non-existent remuneration and no registration in the social security system; unlimited working hours which lasted more than 12 hours with short rest periods limited to the hours of eating and praying; a lacking of personal documentation or their retention; and other violations of basic rights." The woman are demanding financial reparation from Opus Dei, that it recognize abuses were committed, that it apologize to them and that "those responsible for these acts are punished." Opus Dei spokesperson Josefina Madariaga said: "The truth is that we would love, first, to receive them, to listen to them, to understand what happened, to understand the situation, and to try to help heal that wound." Sebastián Sal, a lawyer for the women who filed the complaint, said the case has raised awareness worldwide and others in similar circumstances are following suit. "It isn't something invented here (in Argentina) but it is an internal policy direct from Opus Dei," Sal said.  "After the complaint, a group appeared in Mexico that is also organizing. In Spain it is also very common," they said. According to Lucía Giménez, the women want an apology and financial help from Opus Dei and the Vatican, as well as for them to "publicly apologize to everyone and then say this we give you so that you can live." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...