MADURAI: The 89 inmates of the unregistered orphanage run by a German pastor couple at Tiruchy have been schooled in the belief that the government is useless, according to a report submitted to the High Court.
The inspection report on Mose Ministries Complex, submitted by Judge Deepthi Arivumuthi before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, said they had been made to believe that the government was substandard and useless - putting their faith in god instead.
“When I asked one of the children what she would do if she were stranded in a public place without money, and how she would reach home, she said she would pray to the Lord to send someone to take her home,” said Judge Aruvumuthi in the report. A division bench comprising Justice V Ramasubramanian and N Kirubakaran directed Judge Aruvumuthi to inspect the home after they heard a writ petition filed by A Narayanan, director of Change India, an NGO working for child rights. Narayanan had alleged that the children were victims of trafficking and had been illegally held.
During her two-day-long inspection, Aruvumuthi confirmed that the home failed to comply with the terms of the Juvenile Justice Amendment Act, 2006.
She also noted that most of the children have lost out on formal education, with even the students who scored centums in science being pushed to study theology.
The children have rarely interacted with anybody beyond the home. Even the few who went to school were not allowed to spend time after school with their classmates. When Arivumuthi asked them about their families, the children told her that the pastor had said they were rescued by him after they had been deserted.
However, most expressed a desire to meet their parents. After hearing the report, the bench asked both the parties in the case to read the report and posted the hearing to Wednesday.