‘I became like a slave’: why 43 women are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina
Dozens of women in Argentina, have accused Opus Dei – which has a presence in more than 70 countries but is strongest in Spain, Italy and Latin America – of coercing them as children and adolescents into a life of domestic servitude.
They say they were forced into working up to 12-hour days, cooking and cleaning for the elite members, without pay.
The women also say they faced extreme control, their letters were censored, and they were banned from reading anything but children’s books or religious texts. When they eventually escaped, the women say they were left without money, clothes or qualifications.
After a two-year investigation, Argentinian federal prosecutors have taken on their case, accusing senior leaders of Opus Dei in South America of overseeing the exploitation and trafficking of girls, adolescents and women between 1972 and 2015. The prosecutors’ report is now before a judge, who will decide whether to proceed to trial.
The prosecutors have alleged that Opus Dei (“Work of God” in Latin) established a structure dedicated to recruiting girls from poor rural families, which they said took “advantage of their extreme vulnerability”.
“Opus Dei said that if I came to the school, I would learn about hotel management and that I would get to travel. I was excited, but they did not take me there to study,” she says, “but to work.”
The school Martínez was sent to was several hours from her parents’ house. She remembers being put to work the day she arrived, along with dozens of other children. “My mother left and I was given my schedule.
“We worked nine hours a day, seven days a week, washing the clothes and preparing the food of senior male members. We only had three hours of school a day.”
The organisation succeeded, the women say, because the girls were kept isolated and docile, allowed only one phone call and letter home a month.
“From the very beginning, I was told that I couldn’t say anything about Opus Dei, or what was happening, to my parents. We were told, always, to be obedient and docile,” she says.
“They would only send my letters if they thought what I had written was acceptable. I was cut off from the outside world,” she adds.
Sebastián Sal, the women’s lawyer, alleges that the “vocational schools” were a “seedbed” for Opus Dei. “They tried to keep them like little children,” Sal says. “They justify all of this by saying that it is ‘a decision from God’.”
After four years at the “school”, Martínez says she was forced to become a numerary assistant – essentially, Opus Dei’s domestic servants, who had to devote themselves to cooking and cleaning for the senior members and priests, while living a life of celibacy.
Despite wanting to study psychology, she says she was told that: “There was no other option for me, that I was too poor, that I had no man to marry; that if I didn’t join, my family would be condemned to hell.”
Afterwards, Martínez says her work increased to upwards of 12 hours a day, and she was given a cilice to wear around her upper thigh for two hours a day as a penance, and a small whip made of rope with which to flagellate herself while praying.
Martínez says she spent 10 years with Opus Dei before escaping. When she left, she had only 10 pesos (equivalent to a few dollars), no normal clothes and discovered that the educational certificates she had been issued by Opus Dei were not recognised.
“I had never received a salary. I didn’t know how to use money, how to speak to people. I was 23 but acted like a child of 12,” she says.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...llegations
Dozens of women in Argentina, have accused Opus Dei – which has a presence in more than 70 countries but is strongest in Spain, Italy and Latin America – of coercing them as children and adolescents into a life of domestic servitude.
They say they were forced into working up to 12-hour days, cooking and cleaning for the elite members, without pay.
The women also say they faced extreme control, their letters were censored, and they were banned from reading anything but children’s books or religious texts. When they eventually escaped, the women say they were left without money, clothes or qualifications.
After a two-year investigation, Argentinian federal prosecutors have taken on their case, accusing senior leaders of Opus Dei in South America of overseeing the exploitation and trafficking of girls, adolescents and women between 1972 and 2015. The prosecutors’ report is now before a judge, who will decide whether to proceed to trial.
The prosecutors have alleged that Opus Dei (“Work of God” in Latin) established a structure dedicated to recruiting girls from poor rural families, which they said took “advantage of their extreme vulnerability”.
“Opus Dei said that if I came to the school, I would learn about hotel management and that I would get to travel. I was excited, but they did not take me there to study,” she says, “but to work.”
The school Martínez was sent to was several hours from her parents’ house. She remembers being put to work the day she arrived, along with dozens of other children. “My mother left and I was given my schedule.
“We worked nine hours a day, seven days a week, washing the clothes and preparing the food of senior male members. We only had three hours of school a day.”
The organisation succeeded, the women say, because the girls were kept isolated and docile, allowed only one phone call and letter home a month.
“From the very beginning, I was told that I couldn’t say anything about Opus Dei, or what was happening, to my parents. We were told, always, to be obedient and docile,” she says.
“They would only send my letters if they thought what I had written was acceptable. I was cut off from the outside world,” she adds.
Sebastián Sal, the women’s lawyer, alleges that the “vocational schools” were a “seedbed” for Opus Dei. “They tried to keep them like little children,” Sal says. “They justify all of this by saying that it is ‘a decision from God’.”
After four years at the “school”, Martínez says she was forced to become a numerary assistant – essentially, Opus Dei’s domestic servants, who had to devote themselves to cooking and cleaning for the senior members and priests, while living a life of celibacy.
Despite wanting to study psychology, she says she was told that: “There was no other option for me, that I was too poor, that I had no man to marry; that if I didn’t join, my family would be condemned to hell.”
Afterwards, Martínez says her work increased to upwards of 12 hours a day, and she was given a cilice to wear around her upper thigh for two hours a day as a penance, and a small whip made of rope with which to flagellate herself while praying.
Martínez says she spent 10 years with Opus Dei before escaping. When she left, she had only 10 pesos (equivalent to a few dollars), no normal clothes and discovered that the educational certificates she had been issued by Opus Dei were not recognised.
“I had never received a salary. I didn’t know how to use money, how to speak to people. I was 23 but acted like a child of 12,” she says.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...llegations
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
