Weighed in the Balance & Found Wanting

Karen Zerby and Peter Kelly claim that the child sexual abuse (CSA) that occurred in the Family as a consequence of Berg's teachings, particularly The Devil Hates Sex, is no longer promoted or practiced among the membership. They point to Charter Rules that prescribe excommunication for adult members who are guilty of inappropriate sexual contact with minors and state that the occurrence of CSA since the Charter is no worse than what occurs in the world at large.

Given the most widely accepted prevalance rates of CSA in the US--25% of girls and 16% of boys--this claim does not bode well for growing up in The Family. If the current rate of CSA in The Family is exactly the same as that found in the US, there should be evidence that Family leadership have develop a procedural mechanism for reviewing and investigating current allegations of abuse and that such reviews and investigations actually result in a certain number of permanent excommunications.

If accounts by SGAs who have recently left The Family are to be believed, Family leadership does virtually nothing to address the CSA issue beyond sweeping it under the rug and avoiding responsibility for enforcing the Charter rule. In other words, Zerby & Kelly are taking exactly the same approach to the issue as was followed by the US Roman Catholic Bishops.

Look at the recent case of Peruvian Francis, as posted at Movingon. He was publically identified by a number of SGAs as a Family pedophile, and information about his legal name, location, and affiliation with Family Care Foundation & The Family was forwarded to Interpol, the Federal Combined Charities Commission, and Family Care Foundation Director Grant Montgomery. Result? His webpage was removed from the Family Care Foundation site. No public statements came out from Family Care about whether Francis' project in Perme, Russia, continues to be affiliated with Family Care Foundation. No public statements were made by Family leadership about Francis' status as a current or former member.

So just how does the Family Charter get applied when a CSA allegation is made? SGAs who have recently left The Family say that young women who may have experienced molestation or rape are discouraged from reporting the incident in the first place. Leadership can be expected to express concern about the damage that will be done to The Family if the matter is reported to local law enforcement. SGAs who know about current disciplinary practices in The Family report that leadership can also be expected to use coersive and manipulative tactics to discourage the reporting of these incidents to law enforcement.

The young women who have reported rape directly Zerby have been counseled by her in letters to "forgive, forget, and move on with your life." This suggests that even when victims report the offenses privately through the chain of command, there is little interest in actually applying Charter rules. The Family does not appear to have any sort of formal procedures--such as impartial investigator trained in handing CSA allegations or an internal ecclesial court by which impartial jurists can systematically examine the evidence in a case. As long as young women in The Family are encouraged by top leadership to forgive, forget, and move on--or they are intimidated and coerced into remaining silent--there is no need to develop or provide evidence of organizational procedures that are designed to handle complaints abuse.

It appears that whatever complaints actually rise to the attention of a Home Shepherd, VS, or CRO are handled on a case-by-case basis. In this scenario, there probably are a few "bad apples" and handy scapegoats that Family leadership is willing to excommunicate as a public example. Leadership regularly purges the ranks of those it deems to be too great of a liability or under productive. If you read Zerby & Kelly carefully on their latest reorganization plan for The Family, it becomes evident that a CM Home has no room for dead weight. Those who can't pull their weight will probably include the mentally retarded and developmentally delayed and those with chronic debilitating physical conditions and brain diseases.

It is easy to understand the difference between the few Family members who become public examples on the CSA issue and the majority who are simply relocated to some other part of the world. "Sweep it under the carpet" would also include cases where the victim-accuser is either strongly encouraged to leave the Family or is simply locked out of the Home and told she is no longer welcome. In those cases, the alleged perpetrator is much too powerful to be inconvenienced by a relocation.

Family members who have some form of reliable income, such as a trust fund or royalties, and those who are particularly skilled at bringing in donations and other forms of support due to their connections with well-to-do and powerful Systemites, are not likely to see Charter rules concerning CSA applied to them. This explains why there has been no official statement about the current status of Peruvian Francis.

Family leaders who have institutional leverage with Zerby or Kelly are also likely to be exempted from application of the Charter rules on CSA. This includes those who manage the bank accounts and those who could seriously injure top leadership and middle management if they went public with what they know about the criminal activity that has gone on in the past or continues to go on in the upper echelons of the hierarchy. This explains why allegations concerning Grant Montgomery's history of sexual involvement of minors do not appear to have resulted in any sort of internal investigation or formal response from the King & Queen of Institutionalized Pedophilia.

Travelling under a false identity with a forged passport is the most evident criminal activity in which Zerby & Kelly continue to engage, and they are vulnerable on this issue whether they recognize it or not. The evidence suggests that there are more than a few SGAs within The Family who would are banding together to bring about a "regime change." Disclosing the whereabouts of the Family's criminal Queen may be viewed by die-hard loyalists as the betrayal of a Judas. To those who seek justice, it would be viewed as doing the right thing.