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New Tribes Mission hit by another child sex abuse suit The child of missionaries in Senegal is suing in Sanford. Share0 Comments 0 By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel 5:21 p.m. EDT, July 29, 2011
SANFORD – Another woman has sued New Tribes Mission, one of the largest Christian mission organizations in the world, the second alleging she was the child of missionaries when she was sexually abused by a dorm dad and Bible teacher at a New Tribes-run boarding school 25 years ago.
This woman, identified only as Jane Doe, alleges she was victimized at the boarding school in Fanda, Senegal.
The earlier suit, filed in May, alleges that a different woman, Jane Doe No. 7, was sexually abused on a different continent – Asia – also at a church-run boarding school.
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That woman grew up, the child of New Tribes missionaries, in the Philippines and alleges she was sexually abused in the 1980s and early '90s.
Each suit identifies by name the dorm dads accused of the abuse. They are different people, and neither is named as a defendant.
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Instead, the suits focus on New Tribes, accusing it of failing to properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse at those mission compounds and once it did find out, covering it up.
New Tribes attorney David Doyle did not return a phone call Friday. Neither did New Tribes spokeswoman Nita Zelenak.
The new suit, filed last week, provides few details about the abuse. It does not say how many times the woman, now in her 30s and living in Canada, was abused.
That's because she suppressed all memories of it until last year, according to her attorney, Eric Faddis.
That's when GRACE, a Christian organization hired by New Tribes to investigate what happened at Fanda, released its findings. It reported that two dozen children had been sexually abused by a dozen employees there in the 1980s and 90s.
New Tribes accepted responsibility for the abuse when the report was released. It said its managers had made inadequate attempts to investigate in 1997 and 2009 and that, as an organization, it had sinned against the children.
It had not reported the alleged abusers to local law enforcement authorities, Zelenak said last year.
GRACE investigated abuse only at Fanda - not Aritao Nueva Vizcaya, the Philippines, the site of the abuse alleged in the other woman's case.
She alleges she was raped repeatedly from age 8. She has asked for at least $5 million in damages.
The church will argue at a hearing Aug. 31 that her suit should be dismissed. The abuse took place more than four years ago, meaning the woman waited too long to file suit, the missionary group alleges.
It also says the organization shouldn't be held liable for the acts of an employee.
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