A lawyer for ex-Gloriavale members says the sect depends on child labour, calling out the Government for turning a blind eye to "slavery in our country".
Barrister Brian Henry has been leading the fight against the isolated Christian Community where he said the members have no choice and the leaders have "total power and control" over their lives.
Last week, the Employment Court ruled six former Gloriavale residents were employees - not volunteers - while living in the reclusive West Coast community.
Dubbed the 'Glorivale six', Serenity Pilgrim, Anna Courage, Rose Standtrue, Crystal Loyal, Pearl Valor and Virginia Courage said they were treated like slaves, primed for the job from birth and worked for many years under punishing conditions.
The decision has prompted the Education Review Office to investigate Gloriavale School after the judge found girls were only provided education to the extent it prepared them for their role within the community.
Appearing on Newshub Nation on Saturday, Henry told co-host Rebecca Wright it is "mind-boggling" the Government has not intervened.
Founded over 50 years ago, Glorivale quickly realised it could not solely rely on bringing in adults to increase its membership and decided to build the population with the children, Henry said.
"They literally depended then on child labour," he said.
Henry said at the time there were around 400 children and 200 adults in the community located in the "wild west" of the South Island. He said they put children to work as their businesses required labour.
Flash forward to the present day and there are roughly 350 children under the age of 15 which Henry believes are working as slaves.
"They are claiming they've made changes. I'm totally sceptical, simply because they need to have child labour to operate," he said.
The children are born into a male-dominated society where they are taught no different, Henry said.
"The issue now is the three-year-old girl whose life, by virtue of birth, is dictated into cooking, cleaning and sewing - hard, hard, work."
"They work incredibly hard. That isn't stopped and that's not going to stop through our litigation, that stops because Government steps up someone in its bowels and does its job."
Henry is questioning where the Government has been while Glorivale continues to operate.
"This is slavery in our country, under our noses and nothing is happening except through the Labour Court and the chief judge of the labour court and what she's done in these hearings - otherwise, we'd just be carrying on," he said.
"If we have got no agency in Government who is prepared to recognise and do something about slavery, we have got a big problem in our constitution."
MBIE respond
MBIE head of compliance and enforcement labour inspectorate Simon Humphries told Newshub it is important to note the situation at Gloriavale goes far beyond employment law.
The Regional Public Service Commissioner for the West Coast is convening the all-of-government response to supporting change at the Gloriavale community which was mandated by Cabinet in August 2022, Humphries said. As part of this, MBIE continues to work with relevant agencies including New Zealand Police, Oranga Tamariki, and WorkSafe.
Humphries said in regard to the most recent court ruling, the case does not identify the employers of the ex-members.
"The Inspectorate awaits the outcome from the court as to the identity of the employer to progress any remediation or enforcement action," he said.
"We continue to regularly engage with the Gloriavale leadership about changes to work practices required to address the Employment Court's concerns. It would not be appropriate to comment further while some matters are still before the courts."
Once the employer is identified, the Labour Inspectorate will work with the applicants and the employer(s) to implement payment of minimum wage arrears and other entitlements owed to them. The Inspectorate will also look to enforce payment of minimum wages and minimum wage arrears to people still at Gloriavale.
"We continue to regularly engage with the Gloriavale leadership about changes to work practices required to address the Employment Court's concerns. It would not be appropriate to comment further while some matters are still before the courts," Humphries said.
Watch Newshub Nation 9:30am Saturday/10am Sunday on Three & Three Now, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
