Victims of clerical sex abuse gather at Vatican

Organisers said tomorrow's gathering would mark the first time that abuse survivors from around the world will gather for a day of healing and to demand greater accountability from the Vatican. A few hundred people from a dozen countries are expected. Organisers had hoped to stage the demonstration in St Peter's Square, but had to move it a few hundred metres as the Pope declined to give them access.

Gary Bergeron, abused as an altar boy by a Boston-area priest, said the issue needs to be treated as a global one.

"If it can happen in an institution like the Catholic Church, it can happen anywhere," he said. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone."

Mr Bergeron and co-organiser Bernie McDaid were two of the more prominent survivors of clerical abuse to emerge after the sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002.

In 2008 McDaid became the first victim to meet with Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff's trip to the United States. Eight years after the US scandal erupted, however, they said the Vatican hasn't taken sufficient responsibility or put in place universal prevention programs.

Organisers plan to launch a petition asking the United Nations to designate "systematic" sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity.