DILI (TOP) – The pedophilia case allegedly involving a missionary from Pennsylvania, United States in 2018 is still ongoing.
After this case occurred, the Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini, SVD) brought the SVD prosecutor from the Vatican to Dili and Oe-Kusi Ambeno to carry out the investigation process, and then reported the case to Pope Francisco at the Vatican, and the Vatican also immediately took the decision to laicize Fr. RD.
According to several organizations advocating for the victims that around 15 girls were systematically abused and raped by the former SVD priest at the Topu-Honis Shelter, but The Oe-Kusi Post (TOP) also later found that dozens of girls had been taken hostage and became the victim of a forced virginity test at the Pradet office in 2020.
Matilda Coa (24) who lived in Topu-Honis Shelter for 17 years admitted that she was a victim of a forced virginity test in 2020 at the Pradet office in Oe-Kusi Ambeno.
Coa began to enter Topu-Honis Shelter in 2003, and left in 2017.
“In my 17 years in Topu-Honis I have never experienced sexual harassment, and the former priest RD never and never touched my body,” Coa told TOP in front of the court of appeals in Kaikoli, Dili Thursday 10 June 2021.
She explained the purpose of entering Topu-Honis Shelter because of her own decision and also her parents.
“We at Topu-Honis…at the beginning we felt that because my parents couldn't afford to go to school, I wanted to go there. In the early days of Fr. Dascbach who received me, he accepted me with both hands, he was ready to receive me. He also called the housewives to meet us, served my parents with betel nut,” Coa recounted his early days when she entered Topu-Honis Shelter in 2003.
She explained that she was very happy when he was at the Topu-Honis Shelter because of the very good care of this former American missionary.
Coa admitted that, when she first entered and she was a child, the former missionary often bathed them.
"But it's not just me, he bathes all of us both boys and girls in groups because we consider him as our parents.We took a bath together when we were little but when we grew up we took a bath alone".
She explained that when the girls grew up, he also kept his distance from the girls because he knew that too. And also at night when all the children are asleep he still controls the children's blankets.
“If the blanket slipped from us, he always took it and closed it back to us. Before going to bed, he always told us stories until we fell asleep we started sleeping, but not myself. There were always two children who slept with him and nothing negative happened to us. Sleeping together when we were kids, and when we were adults we slept in our own places.”
“I went to Topu-Honis Shelter when I was very young until I finished high school, I never experienced the priest touching and holding my body.”
Coa gives a comparison of attention between this former priest and her parents is very different.
"Father's attention was much better than my parents, because he took care of us from childhood to adulthood, nothing negative happened to us."
But now she feels very disappointed and regretful with the treatment of the public prosecutor and the police including Pradet who cooperated to carry out forced virginity tests on her and other friends in 2020.
She explained that her vitals had been seen and touched by the medical team at the Pradet office in Oe-Kusi Ambeno.
She said that the reason the public prosecutor with the police and medical team did a virginity test was because they suspected her had been raped by this former Pennsylvanian priest.
"But for 17 years I have never seen and experienced the priest touching my body."
Coa now feels very angry and embarrassed because her intimate body has been touched and seen through a forced virginity test in 2020 in Oe-Kusi Ambeno.
"I feel sick and ashamed because so far no one has ever touched and seen my genitals."
Coa still remembers that at that time the police in collaboration with Pradet detained dozens of girls from the Topu-Honis Shelter before carrying out forced virginity tests.
"When we got there we didn't know. They told me to sleep…they told me to take off my clothes. I feel they are forced me to do a virginity test.”
She still remembers that after the virginity test the police and Pradet took the girls went to the prosecutor.
“When I opened the door they said I wasn't a virgin anymore, and I immediately asked them why? They replied that Fr. had touched your genitals. I replied that I was still a virgin because so far the priest had not touched my body,” she explained to former priest RD.
Meanwhile, lawyer Pedro Aparicio stated that he would report to the public prosecutor office to process the prosecutor who handled this case.
“From the defense side, the public prosecutor office violated our penal code. The public prosecutor made a very big violation because the Visum et Repertum was only given to someone who came claiming that she had been raped and violated by the priest, but almost all of them admitted that they had never been raped and violated,” Aparicio explained.
“If there are victims who come to confess that there has never been harassment and rape against them, then the public prosecutor cannot force them to do a virginity test. This can't be."
"We see that regarding the case of Father in Oe-Kusi Ambeno there were many violations on the part of the public prosecutor, and we will process the prosecutor who handled this case."
