Pope Francis has admitted that nuns have been forced into "sexual slavey" within the church.

The pontiff acknowledged the sexual abuse of nuns by the clergy for the first time this week, saying that the issue is one that the the Catholic Church are "working on." He also admitted that the abuse is "still going on." BBC News reports that Pope Francis spoke to reporters about the issue on Tuesday during a tour of the Middle East. "It's a path that we've been on," he said. "Pope Benedict had the courage to dissolve a female congregation which was at a certain level, because this slavery of women had entered it - slavery, even to the point of sexual slavery - on the part of clerics or the founder." This comment refers to the previous Pope's involvement in shutting down a congregation of nuns who were being sexually abused by priests. The Vatican later clarified that that the congregation in question was in France. Pope Francis said that to his knowledge, the abuse is occurring in "certain congregations, predominantly new ones." Last week, a Vatican women's magazine publicly condemned the abuses of the nuns within the Catholic Church. The article referenced the "scandal" of the sexual abuse of nuns by priests and said that some nuns had had abortions after becoming pregnant. Editor Lucetta Scaraffia said that Pope Francis' addressing of abuse "can be of some help" but that the church had to recognise the issue as a whole. "If the church continues to close its eyes to the scandal — made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren't recognised by priests — the condition of oppression of women in the church will never change," she said. The Catholic Church's global organisation of nuns officially denounced their "culture of silence and secrecy" last year.