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A North Carolina judge says the Nigerian statute of limitations prevents the case from going forward.
A North Carolina judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging a missionary agency was responsible for abuse at a boarding school in Nigeria, ruling the statute of limitations in Nigeria prevents him from hearing the case.
“It was a gut punch—building yourself up for things, hoping, hoping, hoping, then having the rug pulled out from under you at the very last moment,” plaintiff Daniel Robinson, the son of Canadian missionaries, told CT.
The suit against SIM—formerly known as Soudan Interior Mission, Sudan Interior Mission, and Society for International Ministries—claims that seven employees at two schools in Jos and Miango, Nigeria, sexually abused children as young as five. The abuse reportedly went on from 1962 to 1981.
Six of those former missionary kids filed suit in December 2021, arguing the North Carolina–based missionary agency “breached its duty in hiring, retaining and supervising” staff at the schools. The missionary organization counters that, in fact, the schools were not under its supervision.
“We were surprised to have been named in litigation,” SIM said in an official statement sent to CT. “While some SIM USA staff children attended these schools, SIM USA did not manage either school. Both schools were run by local, independent entities in Nigeria, without operational input or oversight by SIM USA.”
One of the schools, however, was named for SIM founder Thomas Kent. Both were started by SIM-affiliated missionaries.
The question of oversight didn’t get argued in court, though, because Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin ruled last week that a North Carolina law lifting the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases for a two-year period does ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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