Boy Scouts of America Sexual Abuse: Norman Rockwell Works for Sale to Compensate Victims

Hundreds of works of art, including sixty by Norman Rockwell, will be put up for sale by the Boy Scouts of America, to help compensate the thousands of people who have claimed to be victims of sexual abuse within the main American scout organization.

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According to documents filed with the Delaware bankruptcy court this week, the organization, which faces nearly 100,000 sexual abuse complaints, intends to sell 59 works by the famous New York painter and illustrator (1894-1978). ).

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The works, dated 1916 to 1976, reflect the long collaboration between this celebrated columnist of American society and the scout movement.

Some tables have names closely linked to the traditions of the youth movement, as

( "

") or

(

).

The documents filed in court - nearly 380 pages - do not specify the estimated value of these paintings.

A sale to get out of bankruptcy?

In a statement Wednesday, the BSA said the works for sale - which represent almost all of Rockwell's 65 paintings on scouting, currently on display in an Ohio museum - had not yet been formally released. estimated.

They will be sold "

" adds the organization, which hopes to exit bankruptcy in the fall of 2021.

According to the Norman Rockwell Museum, located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the place where the artist died in 1978, Norman Rockwell began collaborating with the Boy Scouts in his youth, in 1912, before being appointed artistic director of their magazine

few years later.

Huge sexual abuse scandal

The Boy Scouts have been weakened in recent years by a huge scandal of sexual abuse, which came to light from 2012. At the end of February 2020, deadline to benefit from a compensation fund, nearly 100,000 people 'were declared victims of sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts of America.

Eight times more than the number of complaints filed against the American Catholic clergy, according to lawyers representing victims of these abuses.

Weighed down by these accusations which have already given rise to expensive lawsuits, the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, in order to freeze all claims for compensation in court and redirect them to the compensation fund.

The latter seeks to raise at least 300 million dollars, according to American media.

The organization, founded in 1910 and which has some 2 million members, ensures that it has now "

".

Entire pages of the organization's website are now devoted to its efforts to compensate victims.