From a SGA Member to Maria and Peter

from Jules - Thursday, January 09, 2003
accessed 2266 times

In May of last year, I and some other people engaged in a discussion with a young adult (K.) who was born and raised in the Family, and is currently a fulltime adult member. K. offered to send a letter to Karen Zerby (Maria) and Steve Kelly (Peter), the current leaders of the Family, outlining our concerns and with recommendations for how these could be addressed by the Family itself.
Please note that while some of the suggestions here are mine (and came from the example of the Hare Krishna movement's reponse to abuse within their organization), as well as another young exer, this letter was compiled and written by the Family member SGA themself.
Although the letter was acknowledged by Zerby and Kelly's secretary as being received, after nearly 8 months, K. has not received an answer on these issues, and has given permission for me to post this letter here. To protect the privacy of the author, I have removed a couple lines in the first paragraph containing personal information.

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Wednesday, 15 May 2002

Dear Mama and Peter,

Hi, I’m K., I’m [an SG], and have been in the Family my whole life. ...

The reason I’m writing is because I have a couple of questions, and some suggestions, regarding our stance as the Family on sexual abuse, specifically regarding our policy on if and when offenders should be reported to local authorities.

I’m happy to say that in my time in the Family I have never experienced, or witnessed, any such abuse, and so it was never something to which I gave much thought. Recently I came in contact with some ex-members, and one topic which came up was past and present cases of abuse. I said that current Family policy would mean that any offenders would be excommunicated.

One of them, however, mentioned a specific case in which their sister had recently (in the past 3 months) been sexually abused by her step-father. According to this ex-member, her step-father has been guilty of such offences in the past but despite that he was only given a 3-week probationary period by the leadership (they weren’t clear on who.)

Having only heard one side of this story I’m really in no position to formulate an opinion on it. It does seem unusual though, as from what I remember Probation is a disciplinary measure administered by the Home - not leadership - and if it was something administered by the shepherds then the shortest period of Partial Excommunication is 3 months. Anyhow, I don’t want to get into the specifics of this case here.

I was first of all surprised to hear that any Family members would be doing that - especially now, after so much has come out in the Word, and after all of the legal battles which we have fought to prove that the Family is a safe environment for children to grow up in. For anyone to do that exhibits a real lack of love and it’s saddening to hear that there are still folks in the Family who do so.

The questions I have are what exactly is the Family’s policy in such cases? A couple of the ex-members who were involved in this discussion had some suggestions, and I have some of my own as well. Maybe all of this has already been covered in a GN, since I’ve never been involved in anything along these lines I could well have forgotten any specific counsel regarding it.

First of all here are some suggestions from one ex-member, I promised that I would convey their concerns and suggestions. I’ve included my own thoughts on them as well [below in brackets]:

1. Establish an internal child protection service to investigate allegations of inappropriate behaviour by adults towards minors. This would be an objective 3rd party group of qualified Family members. There are medical doctors in the Family, for example who would make excellent candidates for this, (I met a Dr. Chris in LA in what was then the "Sizzlers" home). IMO, having complaints investigated or handled by the parties involved (ie: the shepherds of the alleged offender) is not very objective or fair to the child, whose best interests should be considered first and foremost. The members of this body should be adults without even a hint of impropriety in their past to avoid any possible conflicts of interest (ie: not even unsubstantiated rumours about them).
(K.: While I think this would be a good idea, it does seem a little impractical on quite that scale. Perhaps it could be one of the responsibilities of the Children & Parenting Board?)

2. If there is sufficient evidence presented to this internal investigative body to conclude that abuse actually occurred, the adult in question should be immediately removed from the Family, and the evidence turned over to the appropriate authorities. (I think they should be removed on a permanent basis, but the Hare Krishnas have a 5 year waiting period for reapplication for membership for anyone who has ever been terminated for these types of offences.)
(K.: This is actually something I was wondering, do we have a policy on how long excommunicated members need to wait before rejoining? Also, regarding turning evidence over to the authorities, do we have a policy on that?)

3. The child who has suffered the abuse should have appropriate resources made available to them to aid recovery and healing from the trauma. This may include professional counselling, medical attention, or at the very least a caring adult, who was not involved in anyway in the incident.
(K.: I would think this would fall under the responsibilities of the Children and Parenting Board, I guess it would also depend on the individual situation, and how many ‘uninvolved’ adults there are available.)

4. Training on recognising and preventing abuse should be made available to all Family members, and all children should be educated on their rights to privacy and their own bodies. (Also, all children should know how to contact the child protection office if they need to without having to go through their parents or any other adults. Perhaps a toll-free number would help.)
(K: I’m pretty sure we’ve already done this quite extensively in the Family - perhaps after the person suggesting this left.)

Another ex-member suggested the following:

I think a Family equivalent short of calling in the local authorities is to excommunicate the person involved. If he is later allowed to rejoin, then every home that he visits to afterwards should be notified of his tendencies and he should not be allowed to be alone with children. I think that if the parents of the children want to press official charges, they should not be refrained from doing so, and instead should be encouraged to do what they feel is best for their children (or if the child is old enough to press charges on his/her own, they should be aided at all costs).

This is actually more along the lines of what I would suggest myself - in other words some kind of system whereby the VS’s would be notified when anyone who has committed such offences, particularly if repeat offenders, moves into their area. Perhaps it could be something in the Clearance Request Form, to state that ‘I have not been guilty of any sexual abuse in the past 5 years.’ And if they have, then their shepherds could send a report of what victories they have gained since then, etc.

I realise that cases like this can be hard to talk about, due to the embarrassing nature of it all, but I think it’s only fair for Homes to have a way of knowing if someone joining their team has those tendencies. In most legal systems, someone who is found guilty of child/sexual abuse is usually not allowed to work with children - for a specified period, at least.

Also, regarding reporting incidents to local authorities, is this something which we have a specific policy on? Is it more or less up to the individuals involved as to whether they report it or not? Might it be a help if something would be mentioned about it in one of the pubs? I guess the goal in doing so would be to deter things like this from happening in the first place by hopefully giving folks a bit more ‘fear of the Lord’ about it.

I guess it could also work in our favour if we were ever faced with legal action in the future, if we could show from our publications that our members are encouraged to report abuse cases to the authorities.

Anyhow, I don’t want to take up too much of your precious time with this. As I’ve said, I’m not personally aware of any such cases, and I would think (and hope) that they are few and far between. I’m sure there are other issues which are more widespread or pressing right now. But I think it could be worth it - even if for only one child’s sake, as it’s just totally against all that the Family stands for, and a shame that it’s even an issue now.

Much love! I’m keeping you, and all the dear WS personnel, in my prayers. God bless.

K.
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