International Cultic Studies Association
 Department: Group Report - Hare Krishna

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001

Hare Krishna: news articles 1999

ISKCON in the News Articles from the Cult Observer 1984-1999 

1999

Vol. 16, No. 7

Hare Krishnas Confront Child Abuse (pp. 1,3) Current and former devotees claim that for at least a decade leaders of the group knowingly permitted suspected sex offenders to work among 2,000 children in its boarding schools. After years of silence, former students are lashing out at the movement, some of them still living on the fringes of the group, chanting at the group's temples sometimes beside the very people they accuse of abuse. And now a law firm that has won millions from the Catholic church is taking their case. 

When the charges surfaced last fall, leaders pledged to atone for what they openly acknowledged to have been sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the schools. And in May, leaders pledged $250,000 a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors. In addition, the group's Office of Child Protection compiled the names of 200 people who allegedly inflicted abuse in the 1970s and '80s (Two ISKCON child care workers were convicted of sexual abuse in the 1980s.)  The office now reports that it has finished investigating 30 cases - three suspected abusers have been banned from Hare Krishna temples and another is in jail - and that the pace of the inquiry is appropriately deliberate. But some former students question the ISKCON leaders' sincerity. "It's spin control," says Nirmal Hickey, 28, a boarding school veteran whose father was the ISKCON minister of education. "It's totally phony." Half of the ISKCON leaders who pledged to give $105,000 to the ex-students did come through with their pledges, and temple leaders' plan to raise funds to build a multi-million dollar temple in Mayapur, India, has angered devotees who thought the money should go to the ex-students. 

So far, the Office of Child Protection has conducted training on the prevention of child abuse, according to its head, Dhira Govinda, a social worker for the State of Florida's children and family services agency, whom former students call an advocate. 

How the ISKCON officials respond to the suit will likely determine whether they hold onto their second generation, whether they become a model for religious groups, or a warning. "We have nothing to lose," says ex-student Arjuna, who like many Hare Krishnas adopted a single Hindu name. "They have us to lose." 

Middlebury College sociologist E. Burke Rochford, who has studied the Hare Krishnas for two decades, says that the boarding school teachers were largely untrained followers deemed least likely to succeed at proselytizing and fundraising. Many instructors lashed out at their charges, Rochford and former students say. A week after he arrived, Krsna Avitara, then 12, says he was grabbed, hit and kicked by a teacher. "We all had the same prayer," he says: "Krishna, get me the hell out of here." 

Some children dreaded going to sleep, anticipating teachers' sexual advances. Referring to one teacher, Krsna Avitara says: " A lot of my friends slept with him. We thought that this was what love was about." Girls also report emotional and physical abuse. Few children remember telling their parents about the abuse; letters were censored and family visits rare. 

Family Values

Loyal Hare Krishnas tend to agree with Rochford's assessment that much of the harm in the schools occurred because the movement that prized celibacy did not value its children. "Marriage and family life came to represent a sign of spiritual weakness," Rochford wrote in an article commissioned by lSKCON.  Most parents, he wrote, "accepted theological and other justifications offered by the leadership for not remaining involved in the lives of their children," though a Hare Krishna spokesman, Anuttama, says protecting children was a basic value.

In the 1980s, many sensing a growing disconnect between the group's espoused values and its leaders' behavior. All but a few of the boarding schools worldwide closed. And as students left, their Hare Krishna parents often rejected them as failures, says Laximoni, now head of the last U.S.-based school, in rural Alachua, Florida, home to the largest American Hare Krishna community. But within a few years, students began coming back, some say because they had few job skills and little understanding of life outside. Other missed the intensity of the spiritual life. Nationwide, about 100,000 worshippers attend Sunday services.  

International Cultic Studies Association
 Department: Group Report - Hare Krishna

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001

Hare Krishna: news articles 1999

ISKCON in the News Articles from the Cult Observer 1984-1999 

1999

Vol. 16, No. 7

Hare Krishnas Confront Child Abuse (pp. 1,3) Current and former devotees claim that for at least a decade leaders of the group knowingly permitted suspected sex offenders to work among 2,000 children in its boarding schools. After years of silence, former students are lashing out at the movement, some of them still living on the fringes of the group, chanting at the group's temples sometimes beside the very people they accuse of abuse. And now a law firm that has won millions from the Catholic church is taking their case. 

When the charges surfaced last fall, leaders pledged to atone for what they openly acknowledged to have been sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the schools. And in May, leaders pledged $250,000 a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors. In addition, the group's Office of Child Protection compiled the names of 200 people who allegedly inflicted abuse in the 1970s and '80s (Two ISKCON child care workers were convicted of sexual abuse in the 1980s.)  The office now reports that it has finished investigating 30 cases - three suspected abusers have been banned from Hare Krishna temples and another is in jail - and that the pace of the inquiry is appropriately deliberate. But some former students question the ISKCON leaders' sincerity. "It's spin control," says Nirmal Hickey, 28, a boarding school veteran whose father was the ISKCON minister of education. "It's totally phony." Half of the ISKCON leaders who pledged to give $105,000 to the ex-students did come through with their pledges, and temple leaders' plan to raise funds to build a multi-million dollar temple in Mayapur, India, has angered devotees who thought the money should go to the ex-students. 

So far, the Office of Child Protection has conducted training on the prevention of child abuse, according to its head, Dhira Govinda, a social worker for the State of Florida's children and family services agency, whom former students call an advocate. 

How the ISKCON officials respond to the suit will likely determine whether they hold onto their second generation, whether they become a model for religious groups, or a warning. "We have nothing to lose," says ex-student Arjuna, who like many Hare Krishnas adopted a single Hindu name. "They have us to lose." 

Middlebury College sociologist E. Burke Rochford, who has studied the Hare Krishnas for two decades, says that the boarding school teachers were largely untrained followers deemed least likely to succeed at proselytizing and fundraising. Many instructors lashed out at their charges, Rochford and former students say. A week after he arrived, Krsna Avitara, then 12, says he was grabbed, hit and kicked by a teacher. "We all had the same prayer," he says: "Krishna, get me the hell out of here." 

Some children dreaded going to sleep, anticipating teachers' sexual advances. Referring to one teacher, Krsna Avitara says: " A lot of my friends slept with him. We thought that this was what love was about." Girls also report emotional and physical abuse. Few children remember telling their parents about the abuse; letters were censored and family visits rare. 

Family Values

Loyal Hare Krishnas tend to agree with Rochford's assessment that much of the harm in the schools occurred because the movement that prized celibacy did not value its children. "Marriage and family life came to represent a sign of spiritual weakness," Rochford wrote in an article commissioned by lSKCON.  Most parents, he wrote, "accepted theological and other justifications offered by the leadership for not remaining involved in the lives of their children," though a Hare Krishna spokesman, Anuttama, says protecting children was a basic value.

In the 1980s, many sensing a growing disconnect between the group's espoused values and its leaders' behavior. All but a few of the boarding schools worldwide closed. And as students left, their Hare Krishna parents often rejected them as failures, says Laximoni, now head of the last U.S.-based school, in rural Alachua, Florida, home to the largest American Hare Krishna community. But within a few years, students began coming back, some say because they had few job skills and little understanding of life outside. Other missed the intensity of the spiritual life. Nationwide, about 100,000 worshippers attend Sunday services.  

International Cultic Studies Association
 Department: Group Report - Hare Krishna

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001

Hare Krishna: news articles 1999

ISKCON in the News Articles from the Cult Observer 1984-1999 

1999

Vol. 16, No. 7

Hare Krishnas Confront Child Abuse (pp. 1,3) Current and former devotees claim that for at least a decade leaders of the group knowingly permitted suspected sex offenders to work among 2,000 children in its boarding schools. After years of silence, former students are lashing out at the movement, some of them still living on the fringes of the group, chanting at the group's temples sometimes beside the very people they accuse of abuse. And now a law firm that has won millions from the Catholic church is taking their case. 

When the charges surfaced last fall, leaders pledged to atone for what they openly acknowledged to have been sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the schools. And in May, leaders pledged $250,000 a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors. In addition, the group's Office of Child Protection compiled the names of 200 people who allegedly inflicted abuse in the 1970s and '80s (Two ISKCON child care workers were convicted of sexual abuse in the 1980s.)  The office now reports that it has finished investigating 30 cases - three suspected abusers have been banned from Hare Krishna temples and another is in jail - and that the pace of the inquiry is appropriately deliberate. But some former students question the ISKCON leaders' sincerity. "It's spin control," says Nirmal Hickey, 28, a boarding school veteran whose father was the ISKCON minister of education. "It's totally phony." Half of the ISKCON leaders who pledged to give $105,000 to the ex-students did come through with their pledges, and temple leaders' plan to raise funds to build a multi-million dollar temple in Mayapur, India, has angered devotees who thought the money should go to the ex-students. 

So far, the Office of Child Protection has conducted training on the prevention of child abuse, according to its head, Dhira Govinda, a social worker for the State of Florida's children and family services agency, whom former students call an advocate. 

How the ISKCON officials respond to the suit will likely determine whether they hold onto their second generation, whether they become a model for religious groups, or a warning. "We have nothing to lose," says ex-student Arjuna, who like many Hare Krishnas adopted a single Hindu name. "They have us to lose." 

Middlebury College sociologist E. Burke Rochford, who has studied the Hare Krishnas for two decades, says that the boarding school teachers were largely untrained followers deemed least likely to succeed at proselytizing and fundraising. Many instructors lashed out at their charges, Rochford and former students say. A week after he arrived, Krsna Avitara, then 12, says he was grabbed, hit and kicked by a teacher. "We all had the same prayer," he says: "Krishna, get me the hell out of here." 

Some children dreaded going to sleep, anticipating teachers' sexual advances. Referring to one teacher, Krsna Avitara says: " A lot of my friends slept with him. We thought that this was what love was about." Girls also report emotional and physical abuse. Few children remember telling their parents about the abuse; letters were censored and family visits rare. 

Family Values

Loyal Hare Krishnas tend to agree with Rochford's assessment that much of the harm in the schools occurred because the movement that prized celibacy did not value its children. "Marriage and family life came to represent a sign of spiritual weakness," Rochford wrote in an article commissioned by lSKCON.  Most parents, he wrote, "accepted theological and other justifications offered by the leadership for not remaining involved in the lives of their children," though a Hare Krishna spokesman, Anuttama, says protecting children was a basic value.

In the 1980s, many sensing a growing disconnect between the group's espoused values and its leaders' behavior. All but a few of the boarding schools worldwide closed. And as students left, their Hare Krishna parents often rejected them as failures, says Laximoni, now head of the last U.S.-based school, in rural Alachua, Florida, home to the largest American Hare Krishna community. But within a few years, students began coming back, some say because they had few job skills and little understanding of life outside. Other missed the intensity of the spiritual life. Nationwide, about 100,000 worshippers attend Sunday services.