Stuff – Gloriavale leavers launch petition and protests to get Government inquiry
By: Joanne Carroll and Jonathan Guildford – 06/10/2020
[Video can be viewed in article link].
A father of 10 who fled Gloriavale two years ago says the Government needs to launch a full independent inquiry into the community that is putting its members into “slavery”.
Isaac Pilgrim, 39, was born in the isolated West Coast Christian community and spent most of his life there.
He fled to Timaru with his 10 children in 2018, but his mother, father and nine of his brothers and sisters remain at Gloriavale.
“Growing up all my life I didn’t know there was anything good outside Gloriavale. We were told the whole world was rotten, everyone was evil and if you left you’d end up on drugs.”