Inquiry into Gloriavale’s India sect
| Greymouth Star | Laura Mills |
A cross-agency group is working to establish facts about the Gloriavale Christian Community’s outpost in India.
In the recent TVNZ ‘docuseries’, Escaping Utopia, former Gloriavale members Theophila Pratt and Rosanna Overcomer travelled to India and met with Mr Pratt’s sister Precious.
Precious moved to India seven years ago and now has six children. She was among five women born in Gloriavale, who had mothered children in India.
Deborah Manning — a specialist in refugee, immigration and human rights law — was then asked her to look into their concerns.
“We’ve raised serious concerns of trafficking under the Crimes Act as well as coerced marriage,” she told RNZ.
“As expected, the agencies have clicked immediately into gear and are taking this very seriously. It’s led out of MBIE, in terms of the trafficking issue, along with NZ Police and there are other agencies involved as well. So it’s being taken seriously and there’s active work under way.”
Labour MP Duncan Webb asked the Police Minister what the Government was doing to ensure residents at Gloriavale did not become victims of sexual offending.
Minister Mark Mitchell said the situation in India was “part of a cross-agency working group to establish further facts”.
“I am advised that police has an extensive history serving the victims of offending from the Gloriavale Christian Community, with over six years of service delivery across family harm, sexual violence and other offending committed within the community.
“There is a very experienced and dedicated full-time investigation team based on the West Coast of the South Island,this is coupled with a strong cross agency commitment for prevention and education.”
A Gloriavale spokesman provided a statement to RNZ recently: “We are in constant contact with our brethren in India and have heard no complaints from them on these issues.
“Our New Zealand women who went to India and married there did so of their own free will and with the convictions they had in their own hearts. Some of those people have also returned to New Zealand with their families, and then gone back to India. Family relatives from New Zealand also visit them regularly.”
During the documentary, Mr Pratt spoke to Faithful Stronghold, the leader of Gloriavale’s outpost in rural India.
He asked why she had come to India and she told him she had concerns for her sister and her nieces, and did not want them to experience any sexual abuse.
“What is rape? Raping happens from one side,” Mr Stronghold responded.
“Indian men are very forceful around women. It’s part of the culture and there’s a lot of Indian men who force themselves on to a lot of women because of a shortage of ladies in India. There are times these ladies have struggled because of India, culture, Indian men. So a lady’s life is much harder than men’s — it always is, it always will be.”