(*trigger warning: child abuse and sexually graphic content)
I've even had thoughts that religion itself may have, at times, attracted individuals who couldn’t integrate into typical family structures. Perhaps those with unorthodox sexual proclivities~ be it pedophilia or repressed homosexuality~ adult survivors of sexual violence and untreated victims gravitated toward cloistered religious life. I wonder if religion, for some, became an alternative path for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t fit into the cisgender, hetero-normative family model.
When this was exposed in the Catholic Church, it was heartbreaking and devastating to so many adherents. But unfortunately, we have the same thing in Buddhism. If you search “child sexual abuse in monasteries,” it’s terrifying just how prevalent and global the issue is. What’s worse is that the very subject is taboo, we call it “secret” and have vows prohibiting these discussions, so it’s been near impossible to help children.
This issue hits me personally because I grew up with child abuse. It wasn’t sexual, but it was physical and neglectful. I chose to follow a very large and global Buddhist community~ many teachers, many centers. I invested everything in it: time, friendships, values, money, my heart. It gives me meaning, a sense of belonging, and access to extraordinary meditative and yogic practices that bring real benefit.
Some of these practices are so powerful. The tradition produces yogis who are simply radiant beings of light, love, wisdom, and warmth. How could I turn away from that? Knowing that child abuse exists within our tradition is devastating. It feels like I went from the frying pan, from the abuse of my family of origin…into the fire.
There are things in our tradition that are broken~ deeply broken. Like any other healing modality concerning shadow, if we can’t acknowledge them, we can’t heal. The tradition is already waning due to scandals and corruption. If we don’t talk about this and fix it, it will continue to wane and fade out within a few short generations I believe.
Like in any relationship~ be it family or marriage~ problems must be acknowledged to grow. A culture of secrecy, silence, and so-called “pure perception” only serves to protect harm. Child abuse in our religious and monastic tradition needs to be addressed. The cycle must stop, otherwise, like in any dysfunctional system, it will perpetuate generation after generation.
The UN, where my mother used to work, crafted the worldwide rights of a child called “The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).” They should have the right to be protected, safe and able to thrive, and many monastic communities are not that, regretfully, even if they are overseen by a respected teacher. Children should have:
I can’t live with myself if I stay silent. I cannot support teachers and a tradition that enable or cover up abuse. So, it must be routed out.
I once spoke directly to one of my closest teachers (called a guru or Lama) about this. He said, “you’re right” and he said he was discussing this topic of child safety and the recent #metoo ethics with other high Lamas. He shared that, in his nunneries, they’ve taken great care to ensure that young girls are protected. I don’t know how prevalent abuse is in nunneries, and I don’t want this to become a gendered issue. Women are certainly capable of abuse, too. This is also not about the westerners being puritanical or having uncouth or unsophisticated ideology, in contrast, allowing, ignoring or enabling child abuse under the edifice of non-harming and compassion is, indeed, barbaric.
Some say things like, “Oh, it’s secret, tantric conduct.” Others claim they’re extracting some sacred essence from the young girls to gain bliss or spiritual power. But that’s not spirituality. That’s exploitation- worldwide, everywhere, for all time.
There are practices where a female child, sometimes as young as nine, called a kumari is abused under the guise of secret, esoteric teachings. I’ve confirmed with a very high Lama that these practices actually occur. It's not unlike the FLDS in the West, who institutionalize child marriages, or in Yemen where they allow child brides. There are frequent stories of the young girls dying on their wedding night from hemorrhaging as their bodies are not developed enough for sex and child bearing. Pedophilia has reportedly been built into the structure of our religion. For example in our tantric texts:
Another former western monk friend, who is now a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Brooklyn said that he had a client who was a former Tibetan Monk. The man had PTSD and he said “every night at the gonpa (monastery) as soon as the lights went out, it was rape." He always tried to hide but he could not.
A Lama friend of mine told me firsthand that there was so much abuse in Rumtek that he tried to run away. He said that he’d get to the end of the street and there would be nowhere else for him to go, so he’d have to go back. He said that he suffers today from psychological problems, but at least “he is free.” He reported.
This is horrifying. It doesn’t matter what spiritual justification is offered. No one has the right to harm a child. Abuse ruins lives. It causes dissociation, self-harm, like girls cutting their arms, suicide, broken or dysfunctional relationships, and oftentimes, lifelong psychological damage. We have to stop this. See a firsthand testimony and some suggestions from a Tibetan Medical Doctor and former Monk: What Went Wrong https://tricycle.org/magazine/what-went-wrong-tibetan-sex-abuse
This is worldwide. I suspect abuse occurs in nearly every same-sex monastery, across all Buddhist sects. I know that’s a bold claim, but it’s based on too much evidence to ignore. I once had a conversation with a BBC reporter named Saroj Pathirana who writes articles about child abuse in Sri Lanka in Buddhist monastaries. See: Sri Lanka's hidden scourge of religious child abuse and he and I talked a few years back.
I said to him that I'm still a Buddhist and I have so very much faith in my religion but I found out that there's child abuse that is in same-sex monasteries and also in lay communities. What can we do about it? He said to me certainly I'm happy to be a whistleblower and I can give you the full access to the BBC and I would love to do something about this issue too. He said there's one thing that we need, and that is... firsthand testimonies of former monks, nuns and assault survivors within the organization to come forth~ but they have to be able to be verifiable and traceable, and put their names to their experience. They can use a pseudonym in the articles, but in order to print something in terms of integrity and liability, the whistleblowers must be able to be contacted, and all statements corroborated. The problem with this is that it's built into these cultures to have silence and secrecy and to enable these things under the guise of the religion being the social, pivotal authority.
So anyone that would ever speak out, would be equated with someone who is "demonic, vengeful, mentally unstable, a Chinese operative or one trying to take down the dharma," as the Dharma itself, as a method of spiritual freedom has now been conflated with the monastic, Lama run institutions and orthodox doctrine. There are spiritual, social and religious, punitive implications of doing so- the whistleblower becomes a veritable pariah, and they have culturally encoded mandates to shun and excommunicate people in their community. The social cost to come forth is insurmountably high. So, very few people if any, are ever going to come out. Even the ones that were hurt deeply. It is a monumental dark secret that still continues to this day worldwide. The reporter and I discussed that it's almost impossible for us to be able to bring transparency and social change to help these children that are hurt every day. This is a worldwide global scandal of unprecedented proportion that I believe, even exceeds the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.
We need a full, worldwide truth and reconciliation. And I believe it should be non-punitive. There are so many people involved~ both victims and perpetrators~ that the only path forward may be social change and therapeutic, not legal.
What if we made it safe for people to come forward? What if there were no prison sentences, just counseling, therapy, healing, and accountability? I know that the perpetrators often will not want to relinquish power and sexual access to women and/or children. I must believe that we can learn, grow heal and change, and it will require having very hard conversations, transparency and deep widespread global work.
Right now, no one will come forward because the cost is too high, as abuse is mandatory reported. I have worked for an organization called the Mindfulness Peace Project and I taught meditation in prisons. I was involved with a high profile case of a friend who was abused as a child in his church by a Catholic priest, and grew up to become a perpetrator in our Buddhist tradition. He was caught and he was told that every single sexual event with an underage girl would be a 20 year sentence in prison so he would have to serve multiple lifetimes. I actually advocated for him with our District Attorney to get therapeutic help rather than legal punishment.
Oftentimes they give what's called an indeterminate sentence to sexual offenders because the parole boards are hesitant to ever release these people back into the community for fear of re-offending. Sexual Offenders (called S.O.) once they get into the prison system, are often physically abused and their lives in danger by fellow inmates. S.O.'s are regarded as the worst possible criminals even by their peers. How can someone like that get any help if they want to become non-offending? I ponder, if we offer a protected space~ free of legal retribution~ I believe we could begin to heal this massive dark underground of trauma and unspeakable abuse, and thus *protect* our children.
Victims often dissociate and compartmentalize and don’t want to talk about the abuse, ever. Dissociating is our internal protective mechanism that hides memories in the face of abject betrayal. That same survival mechanism and burying keeps the abuse underground and the cycle alive. We must talk about it. We must bring it into the light.
I cannot leave my tradition. I also cannot stay silent. The tradition I love~ Buddhism~ must change, and it starts with protecting children. We can no longer spiritualize abuse regardless of what the ancient scriptures suggest. We cannot hide it under the guise of esoteric teachings.
We must demand transparency, ethics, and healing. If we don't, this tradition simply will not survive and is waning. That would be a tragedy, because the true teachings~ when not corrupted~ are powerful, beautiful, wise, and transformative.
They must be pure. They must be safe. They must be worthy of refuge.
We must create a global Buddhist Truth and Reconciliation and Restorative Justice initiative, following others that have been successful over time, to protect children and stop the cycle of generational abuse~ the buck must stop here, change and healing will start today.
Resources and Further Reading: Help for people who feel sexually attracted to children https://kein-taeter-werden.de/
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN AT A BUDDHIST MONASTERY https://uottawa.academia.edu/DeborahParkes
Preventing Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism: Can Gurus be Infallible? (Tenzin Peljor) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhC0lVRl1kY
What Went Wrong https://tricycle.org/magazine/what-went-wrong-tibetan-sex-abuse/
Reddit Discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/wcshz3/buddhist_teachers_who_survived_childhood_abuse/
Save the Children Bhutan posters:
Listen to article via automated text to voice
A Call for a Global Truth and Reconciliation
This is going to be one of the hardest articles to write, but it’s the sum of so much of what I've been feeling over the past years. It is a request for there to be a worldwide ethics and conduct change in most Buddhist monastic and lay organizations, par with a Truth and Reconciliation initiative. The problem is so painful and widespread that it has taken me years to finally have the strength to write this. The subject matter is one of the most taboo topics: the Intergenerational Trauma of child sexual abuse in spiritual lay communities and Buddhist monasteries.Historical Precedent and Religious Abuse
There was that big Boston Globe article from 2002 that exposed the Catholic Church and pedophile priests and worldwide coverups. It set into motion a wave of transparency around the child exploitation that had been going on for centuries, perhaps since the inception of the Church.I've even had thoughts that religion itself may have, at times, attracted individuals who couldn’t integrate into typical family structures. Perhaps those with unorthodox sexual proclivities~ be it pedophilia or repressed homosexuality~ adult survivors of sexual violence and untreated victims gravitated toward cloistered religious life. I wonder if religion, for some, became an alternative path for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t fit into the cisgender, hetero-normative family model.
When this was exposed in the Catholic Church, it was heartbreaking and devastating to so many adherents. But unfortunately, we have the same thing in Buddhism. If you search “child sexual abuse in monasteries,” it’s terrifying just how prevalent and global the issue is. What’s worse is that the very subject is taboo, we call it “secret” and have vows prohibiting these discussions, so it’s been near impossible to help children.
A Personal Reckoning
As a mom and a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, I want to speak up. I want to be clear: this issue is not limited to Buddhism. It affects many Buddhist and other spiritual traditions, many of which are in the care of children. There was a recent miniseries about the Yogi Bhajan community and widespread child abuse in their boarding schools. Some 3HO (Happy Healthy and Holy) survivors now have no contact with their families for sending them there as sexual fodder and have lifelong scars.This issue hits me personally because I grew up with child abuse. It wasn’t sexual, but it was physical and neglectful. I chose to follow a very large and global Buddhist community~ many teachers, many centers. I invested everything in it: time, friendships, values, money, my heart. It gives me meaning, a sense of belonging, and access to extraordinary meditative and yogic practices that bring real benefit.
Some of these practices are so powerful. The tradition produces yogis who are simply radiant beings of light, love, wisdom, and warmth. How could I turn away from that? Knowing that child abuse exists within our tradition is devastating. It feels like I went from the frying pan, from the abuse of my family of origin…into the fire.
Choosing to Stay, Choosing to Speak
I simply can’t leave the tradition. I've been involved for 35 years. It’s my heart and soul, the most important thing in my life. However, because I’m not going to leave, I also can’t look away. I have no other choice but to speak out.There are things in our tradition that are broken~ deeply broken. Like any other healing modality concerning shadow, if we can’t acknowledge them, we can’t heal. The tradition is already waning due to scandals and corruption. If we don’t talk about this and fix it, it will continue to wane and fade out within a few short generations I believe.
Like in any relationship~ be it family or marriage~ problems must be acknowledged to grow. A culture of secrecy, silence, and so-called “pure perception” only serves to protect harm. Child abuse in our religious and monastic tradition needs to be addressed. The cycle must stop, otherwise, like in any dysfunctional system, it will perpetuate generation after generation.
The UN, where my mother used to work, crafted the worldwide rights of a child called “The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).” They should have the right to be protected, safe and able to thrive, and many monastic communities are not that, regretfully, even if they are overseen by a respected teacher. Children should have:
- Survival and Development: Ensuring access to basic necessities like food, water, healthcare, and a safe environment.
- Protection from Harm: Protecting children from violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation, and harmful work.
- Participation: Recognizing children's right to express their views and participate in decisions that affect them.
- Education: Ensuring access to quality education that fosters their full potential.
- Right to Play: Recognizing the importance of play, recreation, and cultural activities for children's development.
- Right to a Clean Environment: Emphasizing the importance of a healthy environment for children's well-being.
Two Paths of Trauma
Children who are victims of abuse often grow up in one of two ways. If they don’t get help or therapy, they may grow up to abuse and become perpetrators. If they do heal to any extent, they may become protectors~ people like me, who are emotionally and ethically driven to ensure no other child suffers the same fate. I know what the betrayal is like from people that were supposed to love, care and protect me. That is the job of adults, to protect- not exploit- the vulnerable.I can’t live with myself if I stay silent. I cannot support teachers and a tradition that enable or cover up abuse. So, it must be routed out.
I once spoke directly to one of my closest teachers (called a guru or Lama) about this. He said, “you’re right” and he said he was discussing this topic of child safety and the recent #metoo ethics with other high Lamas. He shared that, in his nunneries, they’ve taken great care to ensure that young girls are protected. I don’t know how prevalent abuse is in nunneries, and I don’t want this to become a gendered issue. Women are certainly capable of abuse, too. This is also not about the westerners being puritanical or having uncouth or unsophisticated ideology, in contrast, allowing, ignoring or enabling child abuse under the edifice of non-harming and compassion is, indeed, barbaric.
The Weight of Secrets
I carry a secret that has haunted me my whole life. I was once told something horrifying, and instead of facing it, I compartmentalized it. This is what so many of my peers have done, too. We hear about child abuse in lay communities or monasteries, and we either ignore it or spiritualize it.Some say things like, “Oh, it’s secret, tantric conduct.” Others claim they’re extracting some sacred essence from the young girls to gain bliss or spiritual power. But that’s not spirituality. That’s exploitation- worldwide, everywhere, for all time.
There are practices where a female child, sometimes as young as nine, called a kumari is abused under the guise of secret, esoteric teachings. I’ve confirmed with a very high Lama that these practices actually occur. It's not unlike the FLDS in the West, who institutionalize child marriages, or in Yemen where they allow child brides. There are frequent stories of the young girls dying on their wedding night from hemorrhaging as their bodies are not developed enough for sex and child bearing. Pedophilia has reportedly been built into the structure of our religion. For example in our tantric texts:
“In the rite of ‘virgin-worship’ (kumari-puja)”, writes Benjamin Walker, “a girl is selected and trained for initiation, and innocent of her impending fate is brought before the altar and worshipped in the nude, and then deflowered by a guru or chela” (Walker, 1982, p. 72). It was not just the Hindu tantrics who practiced rituals with a kumari, but also the Tibetans, in any case the Grand Abbot of the Sakyapa Sect, even though he was married.
On a numerological basis twelve- or sixteen-year-old girls are preferred. Only when none can be found does Tsongkhapa recommend the use of a twenty-year-old. There is also a table of correspondences between the various ages and the elements and senses: an 11-year-old represents the air, a 12-year-old fire, a 13-year-old water, a 14-year-old earth, a15-year-old sound, a 16-year-old the sense of touch, a 17-year-old taste, an 18-year-old shape or form, and a 20-year-old the sense of smell (Naropa, 1994, p. 189).” http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Part-1-03.htm
Firsthand Testimony
I once dated a former monk from a very famous monastery in Boudhanath, Nepal. He got out, married, had children. He told me that sexual abuse was rampant, like the testimony from a high Tibetan teacher called Kalu Rinpoche. When he was young, my former monk friend was forced to perform oral sex on senior monks, proctors, lopons and khenpos. He said that this abuse was systematized and the children are offered in-kind favors for performing sexual acts, like the ability to travel with the Lama, since they are essentially trapped there in an institution and can not leave.Another former western monk friend, who is now a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Brooklyn said that he had a client who was a former Tibetan Monk. The man had PTSD and he said “every night at the gonpa (monastery) as soon as the lights went out, it was rape." He always tried to hide but he could not.
A Lama friend of mine told me firsthand that there was so much abuse in Rumtek that he tried to run away. He said that he’d get to the end of the street and there would be nowhere else for him to go, so he’d have to go back. He said that he suffers today from psychological problems, but at least “he is free.” He reported.
This is horrifying. It doesn’t matter what spiritual justification is offered. No one has the right to harm a child. Abuse ruins lives. It causes dissociation, self-harm, like girls cutting their arms, suicide, broken or dysfunctional relationships, and oftentimes, lifelong psychological damage. We have to stop this. See a firsthand testimony and some suggestions from a Tibetan Medical Doctor and former Monk: What Went Wrong https://tricycle.org/magazine/what-went-wrong-tibetan-sex-abuse
The Culture of Silence and Threat
These children, often given to monasteries by their families around age nine, are trapped. Many families are poor, and trust the monastery to raise their children in a spiritual environment and to get a "good education." Instead, some children are threatened: if you try to escape or speak up, you’ll go to hell. You’re told you’ve broken your vows. This seals their silence.This is worldwide. I suspect abuse occurs in nearly every same-sex monastery, across all Buddhist sects. I know that’s a bold claim, but it’s based on too much evidence to ignore. I once had a conversation with a BBC reporter named Saroj Pathirana who writes articles about child abuse in Sri Lanka in Buddhist monastaries. See: Sri Lanka's hidden scourge of religious child abuse and he and I talked a few years back.
I said to him that I'm still a Buddhist and I have so very much faith in my religion but I found out that there's child abuse that is in same-sex monasteries and also in lay communities. What can we do about it? He said to me certainly I'm happy to be a whistleblower and I can give you the full access to the BBC and I would love to do something about this issue too. He said there's one thing that we need, and that is... firsthand testimonies of former monks, nuns and assault survivors within the organization to come forth~ but they have to be able to be verifiable and traceable, and put their names to their experience. They can use a pseudonym in the articles, but in order to print something in terms of integrity and liability, the whistleblowers must be able to be contacted, and all statements corroborated. The problem with this is that it's built into these cultures to have silence and secrecy and to enable these things under the guise of the religion being the social, pivotal authority.
So anyone that would ever speak out, would be equated with someone who is "demonic, vengeful, mentally unstable, a Chinese operative or one trying to take down the dharma," as the Dharma itself, as a method of spiritual freedom has now been conflated with the monastic, Lama run institutions and orthodox doctrine. There are spiritual, social and religious, punitive implications of doing so- the whistleblower becomes a veritable pariah, and they have culturally encoded mandates to shun and excommunicate people in their community. The social cost to come forth is insurmountably high. So, very few people if any, are ever going to come out. Even the ones that were hurt deeply. It is a monumental dark secret that still continues to this day worldwide. The reporter and I discussed that it's almost impossible for us to be able to bring transparency and social change to help these children that are hurt every day. This is a worldwide global scandal of unprecedented proportion that I believe, even exceeds the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.
No More Secrecy: A Proposal for Healing
As someone that still practices in the Tibetan tradition, and still has tremendous faith, I am not trying to be a whistleblower. I’m trying to be a healer. I want to extend care to hurting children because I can viscerally empathize with their pain. Children are our best investment for the health of future generations. My teacher once said that the next generation is everything.We need a full, worldwide truth and reconciliation. And I believe it should be non-punitive. There are so many people involved~ both victims and perpetrators~ that the only path forward may be social change and therapeutic, not legal.
What if we made it safe for people to come forward? What if there were no prison sentences, just counseling, therapy, healing, and accountability? I know that the perpetrators often will not want to relinquish power and sexual access to women and/or children. I must believe that we can learn, grow heal and change, and it will require having very hard conversations, transparency and deep widespread global work.
Global Healing Models
I researched this for years. In Germany, a program exists called Don’t Offend where men with pedophilic tendencies can receive therapy without being reported to authorities. Why? Because when you make therapy unsafe, people stay underground and keep offending, and that actually puts our children in danger.Right now, no one will come forward because the cost is too high, as abuse is mandatory reported. I have worked for an organization called the Mindfulness Peace Project and I taught meditation in prisons. I was involved with a high profile case of a friend who was abused as a child in his church by a Catholic priest, and grew up to become a perpetrator in our Buddhist tradition. He was caught and he was told that every single sexual event with an underage girl would be a 20 year sentence in prison so he would have to serve multiple lifetimes. I actually advocated for him with our District Attorney to get therapeutic help rather than legal punishment.
Oftentimes they give what's called an indeterminate sentence to sexual offenders because the parole boards are hesitant to ever release these people back into the community for fear of re-offending. Sexual Offenders (called S.O.) once they get into the prison system, are often physically abused and their lives in danger by fellow inmates. S.O.'s are regarded as the worst possible criminals even by their peers. How can someone like that get any help if they want to become non-offending? I ponder, if we offer a protected space~ free of legal retribution~ I believe we could begin to heal this massive dark underground of trauma and unspeakable abuse, and thus *protect* our children.
Final Reflections
This isn’t just a Buddhist issue. The recent Epstein case showed us that elite circles worldwide are engaged in these abuses. It is global, it is horrific and it just has to end.Victims often dissociate and compartmentalize and don’t want to talk about the abuse, ever. Dissociating is our internal protective mechanism that hides memories in the face of abject betrayal. That same survival mechanism and burying keeps the abuse underground and the cycle alive. We must talk about it. We must bring it into the light.
I cannot leave my tradition. I also cannot stay silent. The tradition I love~ Buddhism~ must change, and it starts with protecting children. We can no longer spiritualize abuse regardless of what the ancient scriptures suggest. We cannot hide it under the guise of esoteric teachings.
We must demand transparency, ethics, and healing. If we don't, this tradition simply will not survive and is waning. That would be a tragedy, because the true teachings~ when not corrupted~ are powerful, beautiful, wise, and transformative.
They must be pure. They must be safe. They must be worthy of refuge.
We must create a global Buddhist Truth and Reconciliation and Restorative Justice initiative, following others that have been successful over time, to protect children and stop the cycle of generational abuse~ the buck must stop here, change and healing will start today.
Resources and Further Reading: Help for people who feel sexually attracted to children https://kein-taeter-werden.de/
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN AT A BUDDHIST MONASTERY https://uottawa.academia.edu/DeborahParkes
Preventing Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism: Can Gurus be Infallible? (Tenzin Peljor) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhC0lVRl1kY
What Went Wrong https://tricycle.org/magazine/what-went-wrong-tibetan-sex-abuse/
Reddit Discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/wcshz3/buddhist_teachers_who_survived_childhood_abuse/
Save the Children Bhutan posters:
I applaud the efforts of this author and website to expose and discuss corruption and child abuse in patriarchal religions and here, Buddhism. Women in particular need to write and expose more on this subject on behalf of children. I wrote about this subject in 2012 for the Tibet Telegraph and Elephant Journal, see: http://www.tibettelegraph.com/2013/06/what-lies-beneath-robes-are-buddhist.html. Since that time very few writers or journalists have been willing to touch this topic and investigate it properly.
Unfortunately (although understandably) as none of the survivors mentioned on this website are willing to reveal their identities or that of the abusers, the problem continues. It is not easy to be a named survivor (I know from my own experiences) but until people have more courage to do so, the issue continues, and children remain at major risk of abuse from the perpetrators who are also not named here. And so, sadly, the issue remains one of discussion only, and never one of practical actions and prevention.
Yes Adele thanks for commenting- I reiterate-
“The social cost to come forth is insurmountably high. So, very few people if any, are ever going to come out. Even the ones that were hurt deeply. It is a monumental dark secret that still continues to this day worldwide. The reporter and I discussed that it’s almost impossible for us to be able to bring transparency and social change to help these children that are hurt every day. This is a worldwide global scandal of unprecedented proportion that I believe, even exceeds the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.”