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EDITORIAL December 9, 1999 VNN5047 Related VNN Stories "You Can Huff & Puff From Now To Eternity" BY SRI RAMA DAS EDITORIAL, Dec 9 (VNN) — REPLY TO RAGHUNATHA STOKER, PART TWO: "YOU CAN HUFF & PUFF FROM NOW TO ETERNITY" Will child abuse ever be completely purged from ISKCON? No, there will always be child abuse because people bring all their material baggage with them when they come to the Krishna consciousness movement. Some devotees are successful in not acting on their underlying material desires. Some fail. Sad but true. We will always have to remain vigilant and educate children, parents, teachers and leaders how to prevent abuse. When that is not enough, then all involved must know what to do. There is no other way. Is ISKCON worse than other institutions and organizations in this regard? I doubt it. ISKCON has tended to reflect trends in general society rather closely. Look at the ethnic make-up of devotees, former religious affiliations, economic backgrounds -- they pretty much mirror the culture and society of the time and place. Compare the rate of divorce in ISKCON and in the general population. You will find they are virtually identical. When we first uncovered evidence of child abuse in gurukula, no one knew what to think or do. Most devotees never even heard of such things before. Why? Because hardly anyone outside of ISKCON knew much more than we did. The first major publicly-acknowledged case of child abuse was barely twenty years past. It involved thousands of students in a British boarding school. The headmaster was the perpetrator. He personally abused countless boys over several decades. Yet no one had come forward during all that time! Now that the world has acknowledged the child abuse problem, it has been recognized as society's "dirty little secret" -- in families, neighborhoods, villages and towns since time immemorial. So what did ISKCON do as we become aware of how wide-spread the problem was? We went to organizations in England for help, because they had the most experience. Mother Sita researched and wrote a thorough manual on preventing and dealing with child abuse. All ISKCON schools were directed to immediately begin educating all students in how to protect themselves and how to report disturbing incidents. All relevant ISKCON leaders were provided extensive information and directed to form local child abuse prevention teams. Perpetrators were identified, and, where possible, turned over to local law enforcement agencies. Parents were offered full information. And the whole business was widely publicized in "ISKCON Education Journal," "ISKCON Gurukula Newsletter," and "ISKCON World Review"! Do you think this was wasted effort. I don't think so. But if you feel otherwise, then calculate the number of incidents where the reported abuse took place prior to 1991 and compare it to the number of reported incidents beginning after 1991. I haven't make the calculation myself, but I'm dead-sure-positive the latter will be a fraction of the former. Sadly, as we investigated deeper, we discovered abuse was not limited to gurukula. We found fathers, step-parents, neighbors and a wide variety of others. And just what is the role of the parents? I think it's pretty well understood now that devotees should not abdicate their ability for independent thought in the name of surrender. Krishna consciousness is always a voluntary process. Full surrender is a dish best tasted when ingested along with full knowledge. Personal experience has led me to an unshakable belief that the consciousness, devotion, and activities of the parents are by far the greatest influence on our children. I recently read a disquieting posting on COM: "They engaged lawyers from the famous Turley law firm and are now filing a lawsuit against ISKCON. This firm is famous for having won the largest sexual child abuse judgment in history: $120 million for a case involving 11 altar boys who were sexually abused by a Catholic priest. Just imagine what are they going to do to us." How unfortunate these tragedies are -- if they had come to light sooner; if we could have comprehended immediately the extent of the problem; if we had been able to ferret out the abusers without delay -- some degree of suffering may have been avoided. But they are only "ifs" now. Former students have made their deep frustrations abundantly clear. But don't let the problem worsen by blaming innocent souls who did their best. Don't waste your lives and shakti in the service of those who pretend to be indignant, but who hope to use you for personal gain. To the instigators of lawsuits: I promise you, you will never execute a judgment against ISKCON for however godzillian-billion dollars you want. The facts will never support charges of conspiracies and cover-ups. ISKCON did not ignore the issue and behave in a callous, malicious, or capricious manner. And ISKCON is organized and managed in a far different way than the Catholic Church. I'll spare the details for the court, if it comes to that. You and your teams of high-powered lawyers can huff and puff from now till eternity, but you will never succeed in blowing down Srila Prabhupada's House. Related VNN Stories  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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