SANFORD-BASED NEW TRIBES MISSION SUED FOR ALLEGED SEX ABUSE OVERSEAS
Orlando Sentinel, May 9, 2011
New Tribes Mission, one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world, was sued Monday in Seminole County by a woman who says she was raped repeatedly from age 8 while she lived in a dormitory for missionary children run by the Sanford-based group in the Philippines.
The allegation of systematic abuse was the second in two years, following New Tribes’ admission in September that more than 50 children of missionaries had been sexually, physically or emotionally abused at a similar boarding school in Senegal in west Africa.
The lawsuit filed Monday by attorney Jeffery Herman of Miami accused New Tribes of investigating the rapes of “Jane Doe,” now 35, and other youngsters without reporting the crimes to Philippine police. He is seeking at least $5 million in damages.
According to the lawsuit, a missionary serving as “Dorm Dad” at New Tribes’ campus on the northern island of Luzon confessed to molesting 23 children before New Tribes sent him home in the 1990s.
The man resigned after returning to the U.S. The Orlando Sentinel is not identifying him because he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
“It’s bad enough these kids were abused at the hands of employees of New Tribes Mission, but covering it up for decades literally destroyed their lives,” Herman said after filing the lawsuit in Sanford. “My client believes there are many, many other victims suffering in silence and hopes they will seek help.”
New Tribes Mission declined to respond to questions until New Tribes spokeswoman Nita Zelenak returned to Sanford on Wednesday.
“I’m not aware of any other lawsuits against New Tribes,” said Herman, who represents child sexual abuse victims in cases involving religious orders. “But I know there are a number of victims waiting to see how New Tribes responds.”
Last year, New Tribes wrote on its website, “We are deeply saddened by the extent of the abuse.”
The comment was in response to a report about widespread abuse of missionaries’ children in Senegal documented by GRACE — Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, a Virginia-based group.
New Tribes asked the group’s director, former Orlando sex-crimes prosecutor Boz Tchividjian, to investigate victims’ claims in 2009 that dated back to the early 1980s in Fanda, Senegal.
The GRACE review lasted 13 months and identified a dozen New Tribes employees accused of sexually molesting about two dozen children and physically or emotionally abusing 35 other children. Another seven were accused of covering up what happened.
GRACE recommended firing all of the abusers and creating a $1 million fund to help the victims.
The report, which didn’t cover allegations of abuse in the Philippines, was highly critical of New Tribes’ Senegal operations, which were run by a field committee of senior missionaries who claimed to speak for God.
Their decisions including placing children in the Fanda boarding school to double the mission’s work force by sending their mothers as well as their fathers on missionary work.
“Thus, the children were viewed as a hindrance to the work of God,” wrote Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham. “On the field, mothers and fathers were warned against the idolatry of putting their own children at the center of their worlds and thereby making them little gods.”
Gary Taylor contributed to this report. [email protected] or 407-420-5257.
Doesnt suprize me. In fact nothing that grubby little cult does surprize me. The sooner it it’s banned the better.
The New Tribes Mission has nothing to do with Christianity, in fact is is to do with the Iluminati (new world order). The clue is the word “new” which means it’s to do with the Iluminati which is determined to bring back slavery. A Derbyshire Baptist was split by the cult and a lot of them run it. They were the rudest half concious brainwashed people, and when the collection plates came round all the money went to the cult. I caught a man from the cult slyly emptying the money into a metal box. These people seem to be evil, I could imagine them sexuall abusing vunerable people.