This is part 13 in a series. For the rest of the series, go here.
Note: this article contains descriptions of child sexual abuse.
Serious allegations have emerged of the sexual abuse and sexual harassment of teenage girls at the Pentecostal-linked Esther Foundation. The new allegations have emerged in the wake of a weeks-long investigation by Crikey and raise questions about how much, if any, information was passed to police and child protection authorities at the time.
The Morrison government made a $4 million grant to the foundation before the 2019 election, with the prime minister making a personal visit to the Perth-based rehab facility. As a Crikey investigation has revealed, Esther has a history of using extreme religious practices as “treatment” for girls with addiction and mental health problems.
One former resident has given Crikey a first-person account of being serially abused and harassed between the ages of 13 and 15.
Her allegations include that a senior Esther employee shared alcoholic drinks with her before later coming into her room and removing her pants as she lay on her bed.
“He began kissing my stomach. That’s when I ran,” she said. She was 15 years old at the time, vulnerable and with no stable home to go to.
The same employee is also alleged to have confessed to a closed meeting of senior Esther workers that he had sexually abused another then-15-year-old resident.
Two former residents have told Crikey of being groped by the same employee. “Since leaving, I have heard many ex-residents give similar, if not much worse, testimonies of sexual assault by [the employee],” one woman wrote in a statement to Crikey.
Esther’s founder, Patricia Lavater, who ran the organisation for more than 20 years, has declined to comment on claims that she was aware of the alleged abuse but had failed to inform authorities or to remove the employee. The employee in question has failed for a full week to respond to Crikey’s requests for comment.
Crikey has passed on details of the new allegations to WA’s Minister for Community Services Simone McGurk, who two weeks ago issued a call for women who attended the Esther Foundation to put their concerns directly to her.
The minister acted after former residents of the Esther Foundation’s rehab facility spoke to Crikey of their past treatment and the trauma that continues to this day. In many cases the girls who attended the facility came from dysfunctional homes and had no one they could call on for help. As we’ve reported, the foundation had a practice of isolating young residents from the outside world by removing access to phones and heavily restricting family contacts.
At the same time, Lavater enforced a regime of prayer- and religious-based obedience. According to former residents who have contacted Crikey, they were only permitted to listen to a Christian radio station and were only allowed to read books by Christian authors. Other reading material (such as Harry Potter books) was classed as “worldly” and removed from the girls and dumped or burnt.
Response to investigation
Crikey’s reporting on the Esther Foundation started four weeks ago with suggestions of religious-based abuse, which have been flatly denied by Lavater. Since then dozens of former residents and parents have come forward to tell Crikey of their experiences.
The women who have contacted Crikey range from as young as 20 up to the age of 40. Their experiences date as far back as the mid 1990s. The most recent left the Esther Foundation in early 2020.
For many former residents, Esther has left a legacy of fear and paranoia. For some it is the sight of a white van — the mode of transport which Esther used to find and pick up girls who had escaped. For others it is the inability to articulate any criticism because it was drummed into them through all-night confession sessions in which they were not allowed to even think a bad thought about Patricia Lavater.
One young woman who left Esther in 2019 told Crikey: “If you weren’t Christian, your life was hell.” Another young woman, also there in 2019, says a psychologist told her she had “the devil” in her. Both young women were in the group the day Scott Morrison arrived with his $4 million grant.
“We were told in the days before that the prime minister might be coming with a blessing,” one of the women said.
Other comments Crikey has received include:
“As a previous resident of the Esther Foundation when I was a minor it caused a lot of buried memories to stir. Thank you for sharing and amplifying our voices.”
“Having somebody actually give a platform and a voice to the girls and women who went there meant the world to me, and undoubtedly the other women/girls too. I spent hours shaking and 20 minutes crying as I don’t think I had ever really processed that place, and what it did to me and countless others.” (Left Esther at the end of 2015)
“The entire situation always seemed either like a scam and/or a cult where people were being made to think one way and cut off from the rest of the world so as to have them accept that it was the only way.” (Partner of former resident)
“In hindsight I wish [my daughter] had never gone in as now she has PTSD and other mental health issues that she will be dealing with for a very long time. These years at Esther were the worst of her life. It makes me so sad as her mum to think we were trying to help her.” (Parent of former resident)
“Esther felt like my only option so I justified the abuse that whole time because I was just trying to survive. Everyone that thinks Esther is good has been manipulated or brainwashed or lied to.” (Left Esther in 2019)
So what should happen now?
The Esther Foundation has been heavily supported by WA businesses, but it has relied on the public purse for its survival. The WA government provided Esther with a large, newly renovated home for its residents, valued a decade ago at $4 million. The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), a federal government body, allowed for donations to the foundation to be tax deductible — an effective taxpayer subsidy. The foundation has also relied on a constant stream of Centrelink money, which was paid into the accounts of residents and in turn used to pay Esther for their accommodation.
Despite this there appears to have been little or no accountability for more than two decades until 2020 when new management arrived and Patricia Lavater departed.
It’s not for want of trying. Crikey has been contacted by parents and partners of former residents who wrote to the ACNC and the Australian Taxation Office with their concerns about the running of the foundation, but to no avail.
On one level the abuse that occurred to the girls of Esther is what happens when the state outsources mental health and addiction services to organisations with an extreme religion-based ideology. It was, for example, part and parcel of the Esther experience that therapy services were provided by Christian psychologists who openly promoted the idea that God heals, rather than services based on medication or accepted secular practices, such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
Minister McGurk’s decision to invite former residents to tell their stories of abuse is the first time that former residents have a form of acknowledgment of what they were subject to. It is also the first hope for accountability.
Yet with new disclosures of sexual abuse committed on underage girls emerging, it is clear that a wider independent inquiry is warranted into the relationship between successive WA government departments and the foundation, as well as into why abuse went undetected for so many years. An inquiry should also examine the long-term harms done to the teenage girls who were sent there, sometimes by the courts as a substitute for juvenile prison.
The federal Department of Health should also disclose what it did and did not advise the government in 2019 when Health Minister Greg Hunt’s office approved a grant of $4 million to the foundation — just in time for Morrison’s pre-election announcement.
At the end of the day, an inquiry is needed into why the state supported and lauded what was effectively a cult.
If you have any information about this story you would like to pass on please contact David Hardaker via dhardaker@protonmail.com.
Survivors of abuse can find support by calling Bravehearts at 1800 272 831. The Kids Helpline is 1800 55 1800. In an emergency, call 000.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
For anyone seeking help, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is on 1300 22 4636. In an emergency, call 000.
“Christians” like these, and Morrison is one of them, are no better than members of Isis. Maybe not so violent, but just as rabid and destructive to the lives they touch. One thing is for sure, the “Cult of the Nailed Man” has a lot to answer for.
They are but Christianist, a term used by Andrew Sullivan a conservative, gay, Catholic author and blogger in 2003 concerning the then President, Dubya, The Faux Texan and his push concerning a “Faith Based Administration”, as we can see now here in Australia with The Happy Clapper and his Brethren.
“I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists.
As for “not so violent”…Sullivan first used the word “Christianist” in 2003 to describe Eric Rudolph, the US religious terrorist, convicted for a series of anti-abortion and anti-gay-motivated bombings across the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed three people and injured 150 others. Rudolph also planted the bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
“Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. …It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”
“But any pretense of a religious foundation for Christianism breaks down on many of the issues Christianists now consider their highest priority — cutting social services, blocking access to health care, lowering taxes, undermining public education, repealing restrictions on the ownership and use of firearms, endorsing harsh law enforcement methods and restrictions on the right to vote in communities of color, defending the Mexican border, and closing the door to refugees, to name a few.”
What about Christianites?
They do not appear to be very active in Australia, I have met a few Danes, but none from Christiana.
The Danes from Christiana are cool.
You appear to be arguing in an Australian context from an American narrative. Also I think that whilst the term “Christianist” may be logically applied as you say – maybe “fundamentalist” is an association we can all recognise. Some of the “policies” you are critical of simply don’t exist in Australia.. I think most Australians are happy to have very restricted ownership of firearms.. and the right to vote is universal here. So I conclude your comments are actually an opportunistic attempt to plug your own agenda and prejudice.
What a lot of Australians are “happy to have” will disappear when these authoritarian would-be dictators have siezed control.
And if he has his way there will soon be more of them in the parliament.
Should we be surprised by the behavior of the friends of Prime Minister Scott Morrison?
Sounds to me like an investigation into the institution is required. Would or could that result in criminal charges against the institution, as well as individuals, with regard to the abuse suffered. One would hope so…. all assault claims with regard to institutions and the individuals would be investigated in some manner by the justice system. With civil claims, you are out of luck.. no investigative powers.
How many successful investigations have you seen in Australia?
I think that there have been many successful investigations, including RCs, that have uncovered many appalling facts. The problem is that their carefully considered recommendations are rarely acted upon so the initial hopes of those taking part are inevitably dashed.
Good point.
The NSW ICAC did OK .Set up by the Libs got two own goals in the two Premiers and number of other MPs ,looks now like getting a senior police member with an interest in horses . On the other side, we have three Labor members including Obide and Mc Donald who have or are still serving jail terms and probably more to come,
Imagine the investigations into the most corrupt government in our history and the new wing on the state prison housing these criminals. Could name it after one of the current federal cabinet ministers .Maybe not the ICAC would probably have them locked up in the new wing
I remember a bit about those cases but they were not high on my radar being from SA. Did those cases take a long time to finalise?
Sorry TonyP I am unsure of the time frame I remember Obide was very cocky and said he would never go to jail
Not something the man of God would want . Imagine an ICAC with the physical attributes of balls and guts investigating our PM and his rorting gang of 40 thxxves
These hate religions have nothing to do with gods – except when pretending to follow them. The aim in every case is wealth and power over others.
Something about over the top Christians and children. 100% sacred in the womb but as soon as they breath air exploit them for all their worth.
There is nothing wrong with Christianity per se, just the man-made Churches we have constructed to control the feeble minded that can’t interpret the Bible. Nothing that Churches preach match the teachings of Jesus.
As Whitlam said “I’m an atheist who walks with Christians”
There is so much wrong with christianity – it is based on a book that was written by politically motivated religious men and kings. To coercively control the serfs and underlings. The basis of the old testament is the basis of most of pentacostalism and they are literalists. So every weird, medieval and ancient ‘rite’ they think makes them special is used and damages women and girls (and boys growing up twisted) and men benefit. There is everything wrong with patriarchal religions – all of them. The littl ebit of comfort is far outweighed by the control and hatred promulgated by ‘followers’. And given millions of children have been sexually abused, or separated from family, or died in care over the centuries and that is STILL going on today might be time people stopped saying that there is nothing wrong with christianity.
Esther existed, survived . . . because those empowered to act; chose not to act.