Hare Krishna Movement Acknowledges Sexual Abuse
Originally published in the Hindustan Times, June 13, 2000
The Hare Krishna movement has acknowledged sexual abuse in their boarding schools after three dozen former students filed a multi million lawsuit against leaders of the religious order alleging years of physical and emotional torture.
It said it was also working towards providing counselling and financial support to the victims.
"Hare Krishna leaders have acknowledged abuse in the boarding schools and was working towards providing counselling and financial support to the victims," Anuttama, the group's spokesman in Washington has said.
The group's child protection task force, formed in 1998, has compiled the names of 200 people who allegedly inflicted abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, director Dhira Govinda said, adding that the office has finished investigating over 60 cases.
"There is no doubt that many children did suffer while under the care of the organisation," the Washington Post newspaper quoted him as saying.
Hare Krishna leaders have also pledged $250,000 a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors, he added.
The 44 plaintiffs allege child abuse over two decades at boarding schools in the United States and India.
The federal suit, filed on Monday in Dallas, names the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) as lead defendant, along with 17 members of the group's governing board of top leaders and the estate of the movement's founder, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
The plaintiffs' attorney Windle Turley called the abuse "the most unthinkable abuse and maltreatment of little children seen".
"It includes rape, sexual abuse, physical torture and emotional terror of children as young as three years of age," the attorney said. Anuttama, a Hare Krishna spokesman, said the organisation planned to comment on the lawsuit late.
Last year, Hare Krishna leaders announced that they would pledge 250,000 dollars a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors. Turley said the abuse started in 1972 with Iskcon's first school in Dallas, and continued in six other US schools and two in India.
"We believe the facts as they are developed will reveal more than a 1,000 child victims, many of whom have already taken their own lives or are today socially dysfunctional," said Turley.
