Gloriavale leaders reject slavery claims, say members work 'willingly' and 'lovingly'

Thursday, 24 February 2022

A leader of Gloriavale has defended the community’s way of life and rejected claims of slavery.

Peter Righteous, a senior leader or servant, said people at Gloriavale willingly submitted themselves to the Overseeing Shepherd and shepherds and worked for the community, which lived together as one big family.

People who formerly lived at Gloriavale have told a court that children born into the West Coast Christian community are locked into servitude and conditioned to follow a “brutal” leadership regime.

A group of three leavers lodged the case against the attorney-general on behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Labour Inspectorate and the community’s senior leaders and three of its companies. The hearing, before Chief Judge Christina Inglis, is taking place this week, and will decide whether Gloriavale members are employees or volunteers.

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**

The decision will affect both those currently and previously living at Gloriavale regarding their working conditions, pay and employment rights.

Righteous said the community of 600 people was growing 7 per cent every year.

He said nobody was forced to work, and there was no slavery at Gloriavale. There was no individual ownership and no-one was employed.

“We work hard and willingly because we want to. We want to do our bit for the benefit of others and provide the practical and material needs of the family and every person in the church.

“Families are at the centre of our way of life…The parents are the decision-makers, the guardians and ultimately responsible for their own children,” he said.

All profit from the community’s companies were used to provide for the whole community equally.

Able-bodied people “lovingly work harder” to provide for those who could not work, he said.

“An employer-employee relationship is fundamentally at odds with our Christian principals and the beliefs that we hold so dearly… In the partnership everyone gets an equal share,” he said.

He said the leaders did not administer the sharing account and did not own any assets. He explained the complex legal structure of the community and said all assets were owned by the community trust which provided for everyone’s needs. He said the companies paid taxes and the partners, or members working for the companies, all got independent legal advice before signing their agreement to donate all income back to the trust.

It was fundamental to their beliefs that no-one owned anything and everyone worked for the common good, he said.

All basic needs were met and there was no need for cash, however petty cash was available for people going into town, so they could buy themselves a treat like an icecream.

He said the community had been subject to rigorous investigation between 2012 and 2018 by various agencies including police, IRD, Oranga Tamariki and two Labour Inspectorate investigations. He noted the Charities Services investigation was closed without any action taken against Gloriavale.

He said all children worked chores, “just like any boy would growing up on a farm in New Zealand”.

He said children worked in areas according to their aptitudes and abilities and “parents are happy for their children to be given something to do”. He never went against parent’s wishes when assigning children to chores, he said.

He denied any allegations of corporal punishment or withholding food and said it was “absurd” for the plaintiffs to claim they began work in the moss swamp at 6 years old.

He said religious submission was different to forced servitude or slavery asserted by the plaintiffs.

A former leaver Virginia Courage also gave evidence on Thursday for the plaintiffs case.

She said there was an extreme social structure within the community, with children and grandchildren of founder Hopeful Christian given preferential treatment compared to other families.

The court was told a Labour Inspectorate visited the community’s sewing room and found the women there happy.

Courage said people inside Gloriavale were told to be fearful of outsiders and coached about what to say.

“I can now talk about how I felt. I have the opportunity to now say I wasn’t happy, I wasn't OK…I had to say I was happy because if I disagreed with the leaders they controlled my salvation…that’s a powerful tool to hold over someone,” she said.

She said she and her husband confronted Righteous before they left about the way the community was handling sexual abuse and how they believed it was no longer a safe place for children. She said she had no access to a phone to call police, and people were told not to involve the law against other members.

“He said what about the commitment you signed… He was threatening us to be quiet and reminding us we had had to submit to the servants and shepherds in every area of life both spiritual and practical,” she said.

Righteous said he had wanted to see victims of sexual assaults given care and counselling, and he “fully backed the police investigation”.

“2021 was a year of repentance and a year of restoration and we worked very hard to work in with police, with [Oranga Tamaraki] and the agencies that helped us build our policies and procedures for this.

“We have a social worker that comes out to the community every week and visits with our people. We have child protection leads within the community who are there to listen to allegations of sexual abuse and try and sort all these things out,” he said.

He said there were procedures in place to prevent future offending.

“Our whole attitude where once upon a time we may have had some concerns for the offender, a lot of those concerns have dried up because we have seen the devastating effect that these men can have on children.” he said.

The court previously heard former members say young workers were pressured to sign the commitment by the time they turned 18, before they were able to marry or get a driver’s licence.

They spoke about a gruelling life of work with no choice and members conditioned to follow the shepherds’ authority from a young age, by a combination of public humiliation, withholding food, and physical punishment.

The three plaintiffs Hosea Courage, Levi Courage and Daniel Pilgrim were born in to the community and told the court about beginning work in the community’s commercial businesses at 6 years old. They said they worked long hours in dangerous environments, had no access to their bank accounts and no choice about what work they did.

Former senior Zion Pilgrim told the court the business structure of the community was set up to maximise profits and minimise tax, all while the members were told the community had no money and forced to work from childhood.

The hearing will continue on Friday.