On March 10th, the state of Montana held a hearing for SB312 which sought to revise the licensing and regulation of residential youth treatment facilities. Currently faith-based residential treatment centers in Montana and 23 other states are allowed to operate without any sort of oversight.
I signed up to speak at the hearing along with several other survivors. The majority of us were not allowed to speak due to a technicality. The following is the testimony which I submitted to the state of Montana detailing how my peers and I were abused in a faith-based troubled teen facility. I also included information from an investigation I am conducting into faith-based residential youth facilities connected to deceased Texas independent fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist Lester Roloff.
Sugiuchi Testimony for SB 312
On January 4, 1990, I boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic. I thought I was going to a Christian boarding school. Instead I found myself at Escuela Caribe, a fundamentalist Christian boot camp. At this school my fellow students and I were forced to exercise for punishment, sometimes until we vomited or collapsed from exhaustion. Students were beaten with a leather strap for minor infractions. Staff members would slam students into the wall if they thought we were out of line. At this school, students of color were punished more severely than white students, we were all taught that homosexuality was immoral, equated with pedophilia or bestiality, and we girls were taught that having sexual feelings meant we were whores. At this school all contact, especially amongst students, was monitored, meaning there was no way for any of us to tell our families we were being abused. When my peers and I were abused, we were told that we had brought our mistreatment upon us, because of our sinful nature. We were told our mistreatment was done in the name of the Lord.
While at the school, I witnessed a student being sexually assaulted. I reported the assault. Nothing was done. A male staff member regularly watched me change clothes. I had no way to ask him to stop. I once witnessed a girl be made to urinate on herself because the staff member in charge did not like the tone she used when she asked permission to use the bathroom. While at this school, I was coerced into policing my fellow students. I was forced to monitor them in the shower. I was even forced to make sure that the girls who were showering soaped their pubic hair, a task I now suspect was a form of aversion therapy.
After I graduated from my school, I was highly traumatized. I was stalked by a twice convicted rapist. However, I was privileged in that I had support from my grandparents. And despite the abysmal education I received via Abeka and ACE curriculum, I went on to earn my M.Ed. in Education and served for 15 years as a public school librarian while raising my son.
Over the past year, I have published essays at Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, and Dame Magazineabout my experience in the troubled teen industry. The essay in Dame Magazine should be of particular interest to you as legislators- one of the survivors I interviewed attended Montana’s Cedar Creek Lodge.
I am currently in the process of investigating independent fundamentalist Baptist-affiliated reform schools and have spoken to many survivors who, like me, were physically, sexually and emotionally abused in Jesus’ name. I have heard stories of students being coerced to participate in extreme physical workouts and forced labor, of students being beaten or targeted for punishment for being queer, of students being physically and sexually abused, often ritualistically, of students being emotionally berated on a daily basis- because, understand, the goal of these programs are often to break children’s wills.
I have spoken with a 59-year-old survivor who just wants people to believe her- for years, when she has told authorities of how her roommate was impregnated by a staff member, when she has told of being beaten black, blue, and bloody twice a week for biting her nails, she has been smeared, told she was troubled, and no one has listened. I have spoken with a 53 year old survivor who was beaten on her bare bottom regularly by a husband and wife with a paddle that read “MAMA” and left those words imprinted on her skin. One survivor, who is Black, told me that at his religious school, no more than 3 Black students were allowed to gather in a group at a time because they could be construed as being in a gang.
One of the most heartbreaking stories I heard was of a 5-year-old child being beaten regularly at a religious facility with a riding crop. What could a 5-year-old child do that would warrant such mistreatment?
Since as early as 1974, when Senator Sam Ervin held a hearing on “Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification,” it has been proven time and again that troubled teen facilities, be they secular or religious, enact change by utilizing brutal confrontations, isolation, rigid restriction and gradual restoration of limited freedom. The power imbalance in such an environment allows physical, sexual, and emotional abuse to go unchecked, especially when we deny, time and again, the existence of wolves in sheep’s clothing who prey on innocent children.
I appreciate you and all members of the Montana legislature for holding this hearing. I am begging you on behalf of the children enrolled in Montana religious residential treatment facilities to please provide necessary oversight to protect children from being abused. I don’t want anyone to go through the trauma I experienced. Their future rests in your hands.
HANDS WHICH WERE APPARENTLY TIED.
Despite the advocacy of State Senator Diane Sands and others, this legislation was tabled.