For years, rumors circulated about child abuse at Hare Krishna
boarding schools in the 1970s and '80s. But ultimately it was the
group itself that confirmed the problem, exposing many of the
shocking details just this week.
In an extraordinary display of candor by a religious group, the
Hare Krishna movement published the findings in an official
journal, recounting sexual molestation, beatings, public
humiliation and isolation in roach-infested closets. Teachers,
administrators and monks were among the abusers.
The report was written by an independent sociologist, Professor
E. Burke Rochford Jr. of Middlebury College in Vermont. He said
Friday he did not know how many children were abused mentally,
physically or sexually, but his interviews of parents and children
showed it was a sizable number.
One girl recalled she was spanked and made to wear dirty panties
on her head as punishment for bedwetting: "I would cry ... for my
mom, but that wasn't allowed. So I would say I was crying in
devotional ecstasy."
A young man said it got to the point where he wasn't afraid of
being sexually molested: "Sexual molestation, all of us, man, we'd
just take it, you know. We didn't even consider it abuse back
then."
Critics have attacked Hare Krishnas since the sect was founded
in New York in the 1960s by Srila Prabhupada, an Indian who
believed it was his destiny to spread the teachings of the Hindu
god Krishna.
For more than two decades, Rochford studied the sect's devotees,
known in the 1970s for shaving their heads and handing out flowers
and literature at airports. He said he has a fondness for many of
its members, even agreeing to serve on its North American board of
education. So when he uncovered the abuse, "I was devastated."
One of the sect's official publications, the ISKCON
Communications Journal, reported Rochford's findings in its current
issue.
"We want people to be aware of the depth of the problem and do
everything possible to protect kids in the future," said Anuttama
Dasa, the movement's North American director of communications.
"The first step is to put everything on the table and do
everything to rectify past mistakes."
Rochford said the stage for abuse was set by the Hare Krishna's
elevation of celibacy and its belief that only the spiritually weak
pursue sex and marriage.
"Children were abused in part because they were not valued by
leaders and even, very often, by the parents who accepted
theological and other justification offered by the leadership," he
wrote.
Many members of the sect, he said, had no clue of the
mistreatment because the estimated 2,000 children who passed
through the schools were removed from families at an early age --
some as young as 4 -- and sent to institutions throughout the world.
Children had only occasional visits with their parents, and
letters home were often censored by school officials.
By 1986, all boarding schools in North America were closed
except for one high school in Alachua, Fla., where a child
protection office was established.
Steven Gelberg, a former monk and academic liaison for the Hare
Krishnas, said he feels ashamed he wasn't aware of the abuse.
"There were rumors of isolated incidents of abuse, but the kind
of systematic abuse of kids in part based on religious ideology
shocked me," he said.
At its peak in the early 1980s, the sect claimed 5,000 U.S.
members living in communities centered around their temples,
according to Anuttama Dasa. Today there are about 90,000 U.S.
members, with only 800 living in the spiritual communities, he
said.
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