After her, three other women also reported having gone through a similar story, including Biani López.
She and three companions – although now they know that there were many more victims – had reported him to the Legionnaires’ authorities in the 1990s for sexual abuse and for making them witness such acts towards other companions.
“We denounced him and what they did was what they always do, they took him from Cancun,” shared López, who knows that the crimes have already prescribed and the only thing he hopes now is that at some point the Legionaries will disappear.
Martínez, as is usual in cases of clerical pedophilia, was moved from one place to another since 1961, when he received the first complaint that Biani knows about, but it was not until a few years ago that he was separated from the children and now resides in a house of the Legionaries in Rome.
Many cases, little recognition
Numerous cases have come to light in Mexico, but victims, activists and researchers agree that there are many more stories that are still unknown.
“In the first place, for every victim we know there are probably 50 or 100 more. (…) A pedophile who reaches 60 years of age having had access to children will have been able to abuse 100 children,” Cristina told EFE. Sada Salinas, social activist from the northern and conservative state of Nuevo León, against clerical abuses.
