| Associated Press By JULIA LIEBLICH For years, rumors circulated about child abuse at Hare Krishna boardingschools in the1970s and '80s. But ultimately it was the group itself thatconfirmed the problem, exposing many of the shocking details just thisweek. In an extraordinary display of candor by a religious group, the HareKrishna movement published the findings in an official journal, recountingsexual molestation, beatings, public humiliation and isolation in roach-infestedclosets. Teachers, administrators and monks were among the abusers. The report was written by an independent sociologist, Professor E. BurkeRochford Jr. of Middlebury College in Vermont. He said Friday he did notknow how many children were abused mentally, physically or sexually, buthis interviews of parents and children showed it was a sizable number. One girl recalled she was spanked and made to wear dirty panties onher head as punishment for bedwetting: "I would cry ... for my mom, butthat 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 beingsexually molested: "Sexual molestation, all of us, man, we'd just takeit, you know. We didn't even consider it abuse back then." Critics have attacked Hare Krishnas since the sect was founded in NewYork in the 1960s by Srila Prabhupada, an Indian who believed it was hisdestiny to spread the teachings of the Hindu god Krishna. For more than two decades, Rochford studied the sect's devotees, knownin the 1970s for shaving their heads and handing out flowers and literatureat airports. He said he has a fondness for many of its members, even agreeingto serve on its North American board of education. So when he uncoveredthe 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 everythingpossible to rotect kids in the future," said Anuttama Dasa, the movement'sNorth American director of communications. "The first step is to put everythingon the table and do everything to rectify past mistakes." Rochford said the stage for abuse was set by the Hare Krishna's elevationof celibacy and its belief that only the spiritually weak pursue sex andmarriage. "Children were abused in part because they were not valued by leadersand even, very often, by the parents who accepted theological and otherjustification offered by the leadership," he wrote. Many members of the sect, he said, had no clue of the mistreatment becausethe estimated 2,000 children who passed through the schools were removedfrom families at an early age -- some as young as 4 -- and sent to institutionsthroughout the world. Children had only occasional visits with their parents, and lettershome were often censored by school officials. By 1986, all boarding schools in North America were closed except forone 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 systematicabuse of kids in part based on religious ideology shocked me," hesaid. At its peak in the early 1980s, the sect claimed 5,000 U.S. membersliving in communities centered around their temples, according toAnuttama Dasa. Today there are about 90,000 U.S. members, with only 800living in the spiritual communities, he said. |