Buddhist Monks & Child Abuse: A Documentary
I've just finished watching a documentary with my girlfriend on the terrible abuse of children being raised by Buddhist monks. It seems the government gives the monasteries money to function as orphanages. Unfortunately, the care, at least in the cases shown on the documentary, amounted to abuse. There were accounts of cockroaches in the milk, pictures of horrible burns and cuts to babies (covering their entire backs), and refusal to allow parents to take back their children. There were also locks on the outside of the bathrooms, where the children were locked in the dark for one hour at a time. A complaint was apparently issued in one case against one temple, but another temple protested, and the complaint was thrown out.
I have a couple of questions: why on earth are monasteries being paid by the government to raise babies? Men, ostensibly celibate (an unrealistic expectation for 99% of us), men who are fed a steady diet of outdated religious ideas, men who know nothing about motherhood or how to raise children are being paid by the government to function as orphanages, with horrible results. South Korea should learn from my own country's sad example and refuse to allow monks to raise children. It seems the problems of monasteries and children are the same the world over.
I have a couple of questions: why on earth are monasteries being paid by the government to raise babies? Men, ostensibly celibate (an unrealistic expectation for 99% of us), men who are fed a steady diet of outdated religious ideas, men who know nothing about motherhood or how to raise children are being paid by the government to function as orphanages, with horrible results. South Korea should learn from my own country's sad example and refuse to allow monks to raise children. It seems the problems of monasteries and children are the same the world over.
