AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Claire Aird
Thu 4 Dec 2014
Child sexual abuse was not considered a crime at a New South Wales yoga retreat where young residents were frequently targeted, a royal commission has heard.
Bhakti Manning is one of 11 former child residents and visitors to the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, at Mangrove Mountain on the state’s central coast, giving evidence for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The commission heard evidence of the child residents’ abuse at the hands of the retreat’s director and spiritual leader, Swami Akhandananda Saraswati, during the 1970s and 1980s.
Ms Manning said she was also abused by a visiting swami in Australia, Gorakhnath, and later in India at age 16 by the head of the international movement, Satyananda Saraswati.
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