Abuses of children in the name of religious freedom

Child abuse is universal. It has no national, regional or local boundaries. It is recognized as a crime. Recruiting children for wars, using kids for sex and trafficking, mutilation of female genitals in young girls, making children work as labourers and similar issues are declared as violations of the rights of the child by the United Nations.

The Christian Bible preaches love, compassion, forgiveness, and other values. Yet when it comes to children, it offers another way to treat children. People who chastise their children by beating them do it because they claim that the Bible tells them that they should do it. They quote Proverbs 23:13, 14 which states;

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” unquote

Seven-year-old Lydia Schatz, an apparent victim of repeated beating with a quarter-inch plumbing supply line died from her beating. Her parents, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, California who reportedly called 911 to report that she was not breathing, stand charged with her murder. It has been said that the beatings had tissue breakdown so massive that Lydia's vital organs could no longer function. The Schatzes also face torture and abuse charges for significant injuries sustained by Lydia's also-adopted sister Zariah, 11, who was hospitalized in critical condition, as well as for extensive bruising on a 10-year-old biological son. (The Schatzes have six biological children and three adopted from Liberia.) Though the remaining children showed no visible signs of abuse, they told police they'd been ‘disciplined’ with the tubing as well.

Why, you may ask, would the parents of a seven-year-old child slowly beat her to death? Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said that the Schatzes had explicitly described to police their adherence to the Michael and Debi Pearls' philosophy, which, as one of many horrified anti-Pearl bloggers within the conservative Christian community have observed. Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz were also devotees of the book To Train Up A Child and its authors, Michael and Debi Pearl, and they patterned their ‘discipline’ methods after the Pearls’ instructions, down to the very instrument they used to beat their children. Ramsey, the prosecutor in the Schatz case, is quick to point out that No Greater Joy Ministries does not advocate spanking to the point of serious injury.

Michael and Debi Pearl were both raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in good homes.Michael Pearl violently disagrees that he teaches religiously motivated child abuse. He instead says that he teaches parents to train their children which he claims sometimes requires the limited and controlled application of a spanking instrument. To Debi and Michael Pearl, it’s just a biblical principle. He suggests that a two-foot length of PVC pipe for children over 1 years of age should be used and that children under one year of age get ‘trained’ with a branch, paddle or ruler. It was with the two-foot length of PVC pipe that seven-year-old Lydia was slowly beaten to death over a period of several hours.

Lydia is not the first child to die at the hands of parents who actually think the Pearls give wisdom. Four-year old Sean was killed by his mother in 2006 after she followed the dictates the Pearl’s teaching. She was also charged with murder.

Debi Pearl has bragged about hitting other people’s children. The truth is her actions are all about control, power, inappropriate boundaries and biblical justification. She and her husband bear moral responsibility for the deaths and sufferings of little children at the hands of their parents.

I once spanked my oldest daughter (when she was four) very lightly when I found her pinching her newborn sister. When she asked me why I was spanking her, I told her that her sister must be asking a similar question as to why her older sister was pinching her. She never did that again and I never spanked her again nor did I ever spank her sister. There are better ways to discipline children.

In 1971, Ron and Patti Williams founded Hephzibah House. The home was originally located at 508 School Street in Winona Lake, Indiana. The Hephzibah House was and still is a boarding school for troubled teenage girls usually committed there by their parents and recommended by Baptist pastors. I would like to point out that this particular house is in no way affiliated with Hephzibah House in New York. It is also not associated with Hephzibah Children's Association in Oak Park, Illinois.

Around 1984, the Hephzibah girls were moved to the new facility at 2277 East Pierceton Road, Warsaw, Indiana. This new location was set up as part of a compound, which included a church, school, and staff houses. Ron Williams and his family lived above the facility which housed the girls. The backyard at this facility was completely fenced in to keep the girls contained. In approximately 1989, a 2 foot extension was added to the top of the already 8 foot high fence. In addition, when the girls were taken to school or church, the entire walk there was within the fenced in area. There were also male staff members who ‘guarded’ the gates and doorways when the girls were going from one building to another.

Girls were often taken away from schoolwork and homework to help out with building or cleaning projects. Although, according to the writings and teachings of Ron Williams, education for the girls at Hephzibah House is not a priority. During the 1980's there were few changes in the way things happened at Hephzibah House. One of the positive changes is that the routine of daily beatings dwindled down to beatings being doled out only for so called serious offenses. These offenses could include anything from not having your hair curled, to refusing to eat a meal, to failing to memorize passages of Scripture. Even though at times the number of beatings lessened, the severity remained the same.

The school/home does not fit any category for a state license. A private religious school does not require state certification. In other words, there’s not much the state government can do about the abuse of former members or those still residing in the house.

The director of Hephzibah House, Ron Williams advocates that correction of a child includes beating them to break that child’s will. The breaking their will would entail bruising or even bleeding from the injuries the children suffer from the beatings they get at that house.

This man has publicly stated and I quote; “My wife and I have a general goal that each of our children has his will broken by the age of one year. To do this, a child must receive correction when he is a small infant.” unquote The correction he is speaking of his corporal punishment.

Here are some of the statements made by some of the unfortunate girls who were sent to this house of evil who suffered abuses from the owners and their staff.

“Driving into the grounds of Hephzibah House for the first time, I saw a simple but large white house with a church on the side and lots of fencing. My parents said little as we were quickly ushered to the upstairs room, the room where I would receive many beatings in the next 20 months to come. Fear was constant, most often it was the fear of intense pain and humiliation. The spankings I received were random (sometimes I’d be spanked 1 to 3 times in a week sometimes none for a week) so I was always on edge. The spankings were very ritualistic: I would be forced to lay down, a chair was placed over my head while either Ron Williams or his Wife Patty Williams, or in other situations I believe his son’s wife (Wanda?) would spank me. There were usually three staff members present to hold my feet and arms. After getting me on the floor and holding me down, whomever was going to do the spanking would pray for me, and then sometimes they would wait for what seemed like minutes before administering the punishment—I think it was to add to the fear I felt as I just wanted to get it over with. I personally felt they enjoyed being sadistic in the times they slowed the process down, to show us the power they had over us. My first couple of spankings were 7 swats each time, and I cried in great pain, as they were very severe swats, and after the beatings I discovered severe bruising and sometimes welts with blood droppings oozing from the welts. Sometimes they missed my buttocks and hit my spine and this left very painful deep bruising. I had heard of a girl that had been there right before me that they deemed unable to help so I thought maybe if I was “too hard to help” that they would let me go early too. So, at my very insightful 12 years of age, I decided that if I didn’t cry during the spankings that they would think I was unable to be helped and that they would let me go. So when would get spanked I would try not to cry at first, biting my cheeks until they bled to fight the urge to scream, but I learned that this just led to more swats, usually 14 at which point I was certainly whimpering, but once I counted 21 and after that particular beating I was covered in welts and they were bleeding little droplets of blood, more blood than any other beating. I was so uncomfortable to sit or sleep that I was on very good behavior for the next week but I still somehow managed to get paddled again despite my best efforts to follow all the rules perfectly, and this time I cried immediately.” unquote

“Conversing with other girls was forbidden and looked at as only a privilege. They made me perform several embarrassing actions such as an exam in the closet performed by a man who I till this day do not think he was a real doctor, mark my bowels and menstrual cycles or even show them, count my dirty underwear, hold my bladder to the point were I was ‘dancing’ because I could hardly hold it, etc. The girls that couldn’t hold it had to wear a diaper, which I just felt horrible for them.” unquote

Soon after my arrival, I was made to have a vaginal exam in the school closet by a man who was never introduced to me. This supposed doctor never asked my permission to touch very private parts of my body nor did he speak a single word to me. I felt degraded, defiled and humiliated. When the exam was completed, I had to have blood drawn. I easily become faint at the mere sight of blood and told this to the "nurse" who was accompanying me. She laughed at me, told me to grow up and continued to poke for a vein while the supposed doctor looked on. I fainted and remember almost throwing up as soon as I awoke. I was told that I was pathetic and felt even more humiliated. For several days after the exam, I was in pain and discomfort in my vaginal area besides feeling traumatized by the invasion of my privacy. Some other things I experienced during my stay including being forced to eat worms on lettuce from the garden because "We were responsible for picking off the worms and if we weren’t able to perform that small duty, we would be made to eat them". We were also force fed a very large amount of food at dinner time during a thirty minute interval. I often had to have extra water to swallow the last bites before I was called for my next and seemingly unending work duty.” unquote

“Another way of humiliating us was having us write our bowel movements for the day and ending and starting dates of our menstrual cycle on a large, public paper in our dorm room. At the end of each month, this list was sent to Ron and Patti Williams. I often put down fake dates for my period because I was nervous of what may happen to me if I did not have a period. If a girl failed to have a bowel movement for a certain amount of time, she was forced to drink a green liquid of magnesium citrate. It has been stated in medical journals that this type of laxative should not be used often as they can damage the kidneys but I remember a particular girl named Mindy who often had to drink the green liquid. These girls were also put on a psyllium drinking schedule in addition to a treatment of magnesium citrate whenever deemed needed by staff.” unquote

My first day there, as we sat in the room with the director, Ron Williams, he pulled a very large wooden paddle out of the closet and proceeded to explain how if they felt a girl needed it, they would have her lay down on the floor, put a chair over each end of her body, and with staff members present (as I recall to sit on the chairs and probably to also be witnesses), they would proceed to spank the girl.” unquote

“I was left to the care of strangers who brutally beat me and violated me. I was shadowed for three months in which I wasn’t allowed to wear shoes (only socks) and was forbidden to speak with the other girls. Everything was closely monitored/controlled and if any of us stepped out of line, we’d would pay the consequences.” unquote

These are just some of the statements publicly made by some of the many victims of that ungodly home for girls. Over the years there have been public allegations of abuse against Hephzibah House. There have been several instances when Ron Williams and his staff have had to take the girls and flee from the authorities of the state their house was in. They have literally loaded up the girls and taken them to neighboring states to hide in churches until things had calmed down.

Hephzibah House takes girls as young as 12-17 1/2. The usual length of stay is 15 months; however some girls have stayed as long as 3 years. Over the last few years it appears that Hephzibah House does not beat the girls anymore.

Conservative estimates are that over 70% of the girls who found themselves at Hephzibah House were sexually abused before being sent to there. Now imagine being a young impressionable teenage girl who was sexually abused by your father, stepfather, grandfather, teacher, youth pastor, or other trusted male authority figure before being sent to Hephzibah House. It would be amazing if after leaving that horrible place they turned out to be normal adults after the kind of abuse they were subjected to both in their original homes and in Hephzibah House.

A pamphlet was written by Ron Williams in which he instructs parents how to beat their children, even babies under 1 year of age. He instructs parents how to beat their children and not get caught by authorities for abuse. Ron Williams used to have this up on the net but has since removed it.

I blame the American state and federal politicians for permitting this kind of abuse being thrust on young girls who are victims of such homes for girls. Congress was considering passing legislation to help stop child abuse in boarding school facilities. It passed the house. This was three in 2008, but it died in a Senate committee and it has never been reintroduced.

The reason why the politicians and state authorities are having a ‘hands off’ approach to this problem is that the owners of such homes state that they are a religious facility and that the state has no jurisdiction over religious facilities. If people like the Williams couple were conducting human sacrifices on their victims the authorities would step in. They are not doing that but they are abusing the wards that are sent to them and the authorities should put an end to this practice of abusing children under the guise of discipline.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has reported that Islamic schools in Senegal has leaders who are subjecting tens of thousands of children to forced begging and daily beatings in conditions it says are "akin to slavery. Powerful religious leaders known as ‘marabouts’ hold enormous political influence in this mostly Muslim West African nation. Parents often send their children to traditional Quranic schools run by marabouts, both because they hope their children will receive a religious education and because they are free.

But some marabouts have turned the schools into an exploitative, unregulated private industry, banking tens of thousands of dollars in annual profits by forcing droves of children as young as four into the streets to beg for small change, according to a new report released by New York-based Human Rights Watch. the organization says that children who return without enough money are often brutally beaten.

Often dressed in ragged, torn clothes, they beg long after midnight, returning to sleep 30 to a room in abandoned or half-constructed buildings that offer little protection from the elements.

One of them, 11-year-old Abdou Sow, told The Associated Press he had been sent by his parents in northern Senegal to a Quranic school in Dakar three years ago. He has spent most of his time since begging, and his marabout expects him to bring back at least 250 West African francs per day—about 50 U.S. cents.

Of the estimated 50,000 child beggars like Sow in Senegal, some 1,000 run away each year. Sow, however, said he was too afraid to flee. Several children who fled his Quranic school were recaptured, he said, and then beaten even harder than before with a black whip.

Some children have been beaten to death or tortured by their marabouts, while some have been killed by cars in traffic. A handful of marabouts have been prosecuted for unlawful killings, but no marabout has been charged or tried solely for the crime of forced begging and the practice continues unabated.

Presidential spokesman and Religious Affairs Minister Bamba Ndiaye acknowledged children are being "exposed to danger," but said a law passed in 2005 banning the practice could not make the phenomenon disappear on its own. He also said, "You can never forget that this is a social phenomenon and, above all, a religious phenomenon. The change has to come from the religious communities first.” He added that parents also bear responsibility for sending their children to the schools and need to be educated on the risks children face. Quite frankly, I don’t think many of the parents of these abused children really care what has happened to their offspring. Sending them to such schools is simply a means of avoiding having to feed another mouth in their home.

The Senegal government has to bring in laws that will prohibit these kinds of abuses committed on their young by marabouts whose sole purpose in running such schools is to make money entirely for themselves at the expense of the education and wellbeing of their so-called students. Unfortunately the Senegal government is hesitant to try religious leaders because they wield enormous social, political, and economic power across the country, according to Human Rights Watch. One government official who pushed for the prosecution of a marabout who had severely beaten a three-year-old child subsequently received death threats.

The rampant abuse of these children will only be eradicated when the Senegal government stands up to religious authorities and brings offending marabouts to answer for their crimes.

Almost 1,600 madrassas operate in Britain, teaching Arabic and the Koran on weekday evenings to about 200,000 children aged from four to their mid-teens. Muslim children attending these so-called schools are being beaten and abused regularly by teachers at some British madrassas during Islamic evening classes according to an investigation by The Times. Students have been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted, according to an unpublished report by an imam based on interviews with victims in the north of England. One was “picked up by one leg and spun around” while another said a madrassa teacher was “kicking my head like a football”, says the report which was compiled by Irfan Chishti, a former government adviser on Islamic affairs.

The magnitude of the problem in one community in the UK has led primary school head teachers to break the silence surrounding the problem. Several disclosed that they had asked social services to investigate complaints of physical abuse in madrassas made by pupils but that the victims' parents refused to press charges against the perpetrators either because they felt that physical abuse was normal practice or they feared being ostracised by their community. Some Muslim parents regarded physical beatings as normal because they had been subjected to the same treatment when they were children. Obviously, the parents have to be taught that the abuse of their children is not proper or legal. Unless they condemn such treatment of their children, it will continue.

In hopes that the Aboriginal population would assimilate into European-influenced Canadian society, the government of Canada established residential schools. They were government funded boarding schools where Aboriginal children were sent to learn about European-Canadian culture. Attendance was mandatory, as removing the children from their communities was seen as essential to the assimilation process. The Government of Canada operated nearly every school as a “joint venture” with various religious organizations including the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, United and Presbyterian churches. Approximately 150,000 Aboriginal students were forced to attend the 80 Residential schools that were established throughout Canada.

Students in Canadian Indian residential schools were often beaten if they spoke their native language, or practiced their faith's rituals. In many instances, students were often poorly fed and clothed. Sexual and physical abuse was widespread. This abuse took place at the hands of those who were entrusted to educate, care for and protect the children. Individual natives and native communities still continue to suffer the after-effects of students' brutal and criminal treatment in these schools even though the schools were closed down years ago.

What is shocking about the abuses that children in religious schools, group homes and private homes is that the leaders and operators of these schools, group homes and parents in private homes where the parents who are overly religious, abuses of their children in their care under the guise of religious freedom.

Exploitative, abusive groups and individuals use physical and sexual brutality, coercion, fear tactics, deception, control of information, shame, guilt and other methods of thought reform in an effort to gain total control over the children in their care.

Unless governments worldwide stop the abuses that are taking place in their countries with respect to the abuses of their children by religious entities, millions of children around the world will emerge as adults that can be only be described as damaged goods.