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EDITORIAL December 15, 1999 VNN5085 Related VNN Stories Rape Of The Soul BY D. G. EDITORIAL, Dec 15 (VNN) — In Reply to Sri Rama Prabhu Please accept my humble obeisance. All glory to Srila Prabhupada. As a survivor of child sexual abuse, from within a religious organization (not ISKCON) and as a Hare Krishna devotee, I offer my comments to Sri Rama prabhus thoughts.... While it is true that child sexual abuse is only now being openly discussed and perhaps a little more effectively dealt with than in the past, the ignorance and moral rectitude of individuals and organizations cannot be excused by the fact that it was seemingly unknown, or that devotees had no conception of it, and did not know how to deal with it. For those of you blessed with growing up without the trauma of sexual abuse, I say that you cannot know the pain that lives on long after the abuse has stopped. Post traumatic stress disorder affects us all in one shape or another. Research indicates that the high rate of male suicide may be directly linked to abuse. If we cannot trust our spiritual elders not to violate our bodies, minds and souls, who can we trust? The violation by a priest, bramachari or elder is not only a physical and mental and emotional crime - it is the rape of the soul. It is saying that "I care about my physical pleasure and power over you" than in caring for the well-being of a child. Srila Prabhupada made it clear that we are to abide by clearly delineated moral and spiritual laws. The odious lust of a paedophile is the opposite to the brahminical virtues of truthfulness, austerity, cleanliness and mercy. The bottom line is that survivors of child abuse will never live lives completely free of the consequences of their abuse. It will never be as if it never happened. This is where ISKCON can play such a role in the healing of abused men and women and children. Perpetrators of abuse, whatever their rank, no matter what service they rendered Prabhupad must be handed to the police. Victims of abuse must be sought and supported, with counselling, with spiritual compassion and love. Officials who aided and abbeted crimes or covered them up, even for noble motives such as protecting the name of the movement must be punished for their lack of judgment. The covering up of serious sexual and physical crimes is not laudable. It is not money that survivors generally want. They want - we want recognition, compassion, understanding and appropriate justice. The restitution of survivors back to the family of ISKCON will be facilitated by this. Nothing surely could be more important to Srila Prabhupada. There is no place I am sure in his thinking - and nor should there be for ours for any tolerance of immoral and criminal conduct that is the anithesis of Vaisnava conduct. Related VNN Stories  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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