Gloriavale

[Lilith7]

Most of us will have seen the three part programme,Escaping Utopia, including the final part, in which some ex members went to India to visit the sister of one of them & found some distressing things there.
Govt agencies have now been accused of allowing abuse at Gloriavale to continue.


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/5127...o-continue

"Four government agencies are being accused of knowingly allowing abuse to happen at Gloriavale, in High Court action brought by a leavers' lawyer who describes the community as a "sex cult cloaked in Christianity".
Barrister Brian Henry has filed proceedings against Oranga Tamariki, the Department of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Social Development and Labour Inspectorate, after sending a letter to the Prime Minister and other senior ministers calling for the West Coast commune to be shut down.
Henry criticised the failure of previous governments and officials in the 6 December letter, arguing inaction had turned them into "enablers".
"My clients seek immediate action at ministerial level to close the Gloriavale community," he said.
"Enabling ongoing abuse of little children by the dint of their birth into the community is a gross dereliction of their duty."






https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-det...omen-there

"When Theo Pratt saw her sister in India's Gloriavale outpost last year, she was horrified. 
"She was just like a shell of the person I remembered as my sister. I was very taken aback, I didn't expect it to be that bad," she says. "She was so lifeless." 
Pratt was in India to check on her sister and the other women and children living there.  

On Tuesday, the final episode of TVNZ's three-part documentary [i]Escaping Utopia[/i] revealed the existence of this offshoot in India. But as Pratt told [i]The Detail[/i], she's known about it for years - and has tried for about seven years to get help. 

"I've been trying to find a way to get the government and to get someone to realise what was happening and what Gloriavale was doing with sending women to India," Pratt says. 
"Over the years I've met with human rights people, and lawyers, and media people, and at the end of the day it was in the too-hard basket and no one was going to touch it because it's Gloriavale and it's so complicated." 

Pratt says of the small community there, five are New Zealand women married to Indian men, and 35 are their children. She says the women don't have access to their passports, and some of the children don't even have birth certificates. Peter Righteous, one of Gloriavale's leaders, denies this, saying that the Gloriavale members there would be able to leave "at the drop of a hat". 
Pratt also says that the oldest of the New Zealand children is 13 or 14, and the plan is to begin to marry them to each other in a few years.
"Those kids and those women are hugely at risk." 

[Lilith7]

Their commune in India has now come to the attention of NZ Police.

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/27/glori...nz-police/


"In the documentary, Theo Pratt said her sister Patience put her hand up to go to India because she wanted to look good in the leaders' eyes, but she was now suffering.
"She used to be quite confident and people used to mock her for being really bossy growing up. She was just really quiet. Instead of replying, she would just do this nervous laugh."

It was claimed that the women at the commune don't have passports, and some of the children don't have birth certificates.
Human rights lawyer Deborah Manning said searching questions needed to be asked.

"Can you consent when you're born into Gloriavale?" Manning asked.
"We've got people who’ve been moved out of New Zealand and you have welfare concerns and so we need to set about thinking about what is the solution to that problem. It's a very unique situation."

[C_T_Russell]

It needs to be shut down yesterday, the big question is how to rehabilitate all these people?
The gloriavale leavers support trust would not be able to handle them all at once.
There needs to be a plan set in place now so that the authorities can come in and shut the place down and get some qualified councillors to come in and educate these people about the real world.

Biggest issue is where do you start? These people dont have bank accounts or even know what Auckland is!
Its nuts.
Should have never been allowed to get this far in the first place.
They are totally brainwashed, even more so than the likes of the Jehovahs Witnesses which I was a part of.
There are many similarities with the JW's after watching this, its more that they are hundreds of times more indoctrinated about the end coming and how they will be killed if they leave etc.
Quite depressing to hear their stories. I was in greymouth about 10 years ago and saw a bunch of them walking about on the street in their blue dresses. The local retailers told me its a common scene, seems like a privileged few actually have access to a car to drive into town.

[Lilith7]

It needs to be shut down yesterday, the big question is how to rehabilitate all these people?
The gloriavale leavers support trust would not be able to handle them all at once.
There needs to be a plan set in place now so that the authorities can come in and shut the place down and get some qualified councillors to come in and educate these people about the real world.

Biggest issue is where do you start? These people dont have bank accounts or even know what Auckland is!
Its nuts.
Should have never been allowed to get this far in the first place.
They are totally brainwashed, even more so than the likes of the Jehovahs Witnesses which I was a part of.
There are many similarities with the JW's after watching this, its more that they are hundreds of times more indoctrinated about the end coming and how they will be killed if they leave etc.
Quite depressing to hear their stories. I was in greymouth about 10 years ago and saw a bunch of them walking about on the street in their blue dresses. The local retailers told me its a common scene, seems like a privileged few actually have access to a car to drive into town.

Definitely agree - it would be a massive job, helping all those people & especially the women to learn about the outside world & how to live there. They'll have had very little education on much of anything, Perhaps those who managed to leave would be the best people to help, they'd know what's needed & the best way in which to help them.

[C_T_Russell]

It looks like some churches are taking advantage of the situation and recruiting members from Gloriavale, I just hope they are not the misogynistic fundamentalist types.
However sadly, it's been their whole life knowing nothing else, they probably still need some form of religion going forward, for the time being anyway.

[Lilith7]

It looks like some churches are taking advantage of the situation and recruiting members from Gloriavale, I just hope they are not the misogynistic fundamentalist types.
However sadly, it's been their whole life knowing nothing else, they probably still need some form of religion going forward, for the time being anyway.

I think Gloriavale should be a lesson for all of us; perhaps its time to look at putting laws in place to prevent anything similar happening again. They'd need to be very carefully done so it would probably need help from top legal minds rather than just politicians.

[dken31]

It looks like some churches are taking advantage of the situation and recruiting members from Gloriavale, I just hope they are not the misogynistic fundamentalist types.
However sadly, it's been their whole life knowing nothing else, they probably still need some form of religion going forward, for the time being anyway.

What a depressingly cynical view of the world you seem to have where you view helping escapees to find housing, jobs, giving them clothes, furniture & money etc to help them get started on the outside as just an attempt to "recruit members".

[C_T_Russell]

It looks like some churches are taking advantage of the situation and recruiting members from Gloriavale, I just hope they are not the misogynistic fundamentalist types.
However sadly, it's been their whole life knowing nothing else, they probably still need some form of religion going forward, for the time being anyway.

What a depressingly cynical view of the world you seem to have where you view helping escapees to find housing, jobs, giving them clothes, furniture & money etc to help them get started on the outside as just an attempt to "recruit members".

I'm qualified to speak on the matter having escaped the jehovah's witnesses cult myself.
So many parallels to gloriavale and I've seen many situations where ex-members just go from one cult to another.
I dont have an issue with churches helping out, it's the right thing to do, but I don't want to see vulnerable people getting taken advantage of either.

[alpha111]

In the late 1970s I knew a Police Sergeant in Christchurch who raided Nev Cooper's Springbank fiefdom in North Canterbury but it still continued its miserable existence afterwards (inviting people to visit in an attempt to recruit them).
My wife has just finished working for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. I gather many disgusting people abused their position of trust. Her concern is will people be compensated for what they suffered?

[Lilith7]

In the late 1970s I knew a Police Sergeant in Christchurch who raided Nev Cooper's Springbank fiefdom in North Canterbury but it still continued its miserable existence afterwards (inviting people to visit in an attempt to recruit them).
My wife has just finished working for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.  I gather many disgusting people abused their position of trust. Her concern is will people be compensated for what they suffered?

I recall hearing abiout that - it wasn't too long after when they moved south to their present site.

I'd like to think those victims will be properly compensated but dificult to say if that will happen.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

It won't if the claims of penury coming out of Gloriavale are true. Be even less likely if they lose their tax free charity status which they should, immediately.

Of course, if their assets were cashed up there would be hope...

[Lilith7]

It won't if the claims of penury coming out of Gloriavale are true. Be even less likely if they lose their tax free charity status which they should, immediately.

Of course, if their assets were cashed up there would be hope...

imo that should happen, with actual proper wages paid (back dated) to all workers, even if that means they have to sell everything....