Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 44
Hints about the intensity of the techniques that many teens experienced in the Victor
program appear in a brief section written by David Millikan (1994: 229). Millikan indicated:
[t]he problems of discipline within The Family of young people, led to the
establishment of Victor Camps. In a limited number of locations in Maca[o],
the Philippines, Norway and elsewhere, problem adolescents were separated
from regular Family activities. They were submitted to a strict discipline of
hard work, long hours of ―Word‖ study [i.e., David Berg‘s writings], and for
the recalcitrant, extended periods of isolation. The last of the ―Victor‖ camps
was closed in England in 1992. They have been the attention of close
examinations, in particular, of a wardship court case in London. Some of the
accusations of excessive discipline and physical beatings have been admitted
to be true. These accusations have been brought by ex-members, including
Berg‘s granddaughter Mene [Merry] Berg, who described a regime of
discipline which went beyond the bounds of what could be regarded as
acceptable (Millikan, 1994: 229).
Millikan knew about the harsh and often physically abusive conditions of the Victor program,
but he did not give details about it. Nor did he, or other researchers, use the term,
―brainwashing,‖ to describe what the young people went through, even though the long
hours of study, the physical beatings, the ―excessive discipline,‖ and the social isolation
strongly suggest that the term would have been appropriate.
The British wardship case that Millikan mentioned involved a grandmother attempting to
obtain custody of her grandson because her daughter (the child‘s mother and caregiver)
was in The Family. The written judgment by The Right Honourable Lord Justice Alan Ward in
the High Court of Justice, Family Division (London, England) about the case (which allowed
the mother to maintain custody as long as she followed strict guidelines) spent nearly eight
pages discussing Merry Berg‘s plight (including her Teen Detention Camp experience in
Macao). He concluded, ―[f]or The Family to gain respectability which they [sic] now appear
to seek, they must acknowledge that what David Berg did to his granddaughter was wrong,
not just a mistake, but inexcusably wrong. They must atone for their treatment of her which
I find to have been barbaric and cruel‖ (Ward, 1995: 133, see 125-133).
As clarification to The Family‘s ―disciples‖ and ―friends‖ about its written response to Justice
Ward‘s queries about reform within the group, Family leader Maria specifically
acknowledged that abuses against teens had taken place, and she apologized for them:
Also, we apologize to any of you young people who may have been harshly and
unlovingly disciplined in the past. We have heard a number of testimonies of
past excessive corporal punishment, prolonged ―silence restriction‖ and/or
isolation, as well as other means of discipline which some of you experienced,
and we want to say that it pains us to hear such things. It was wrong, and we
are truly sorry that any of you received such treatment (Maria, 1995: 6-7).
In essence, because of the trial, the accounts of abuse within many Teen Training Camps
had received extensive exposure in open court, and Family leadership had (at the very
least) to acknowledge and apologize for what had occurred.
The most recent academic book on The Family quotes two young adults who had been
through the beatings, humiliation, silence restrictions, and hard physical labor of the Teen
Training Camps, and one older adult who had imposed these regimes on the teens
(Chancellor, 2000: 237-241). This study also mentioned, ―[i]n the early stages of the Teen
Training Camps, several teenage girls related experiences of inappropriate and uninvited
sexual contact with adult males,‖ (Chancellor, 2000: 20). In response to these experiences
(which probably took place in early-to-mid 1986), Maria instructed the person responsible

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 45
for the group‘s child care literature to publish an official internal memorandum stating, ―‗we
do not agree to adults having sexual contact with children‘‖ (quoted in Chancellor, 2000:
20). Despite having identified these abuses, the author diminishes the impact that they
likely had on the youth who were victimized by concluding, ―Family leadership and the
individuals who orchestrated the whole TTC affair seem genuinely repentant (Chancellor,
2000: 240).
Background to the Teen Training Camps and Victor Program
Some information exists about why Family leadership initiated both the Teen Training
Camps and the Victor program, and undoubtedly several factors facilitated their
appearance. By the mid-to-late-1980s, the group had a cohort of children in or approaching
their teenage years, and it seems likely (even from the name of the Victor program) that
many teens lacked the enthusiasm of their parents. A Family publication from the mid-
1980s, for example, indicated:
Many of the couples who had married during the early years of the Children
of God era had adolescent children and, as is natural at that age, those
young teenagers were encountering serious questions about life and the
world around them as they searched for their identities and that, of course,
held new challenges for Family parents (quoted in Ward, 1995: 135).
This statement portrayed the problem of the second generation as a ―natural‖ process
related to age, and it specifically avoided identifying the ―serious questions about life‖ that
the teens were having. Apparently, however, the Mexican Teen Training Camp of 1986
contained a large number of disillusioned teens (Ward, 1995: 135).
Additional insight about the crisis of the second generation came from information that one
of the Victor program‘s designers provided to Lord Justice Ward:
By 1988 there was so much concern about the difficulties in various field
homes being experienced with the Jett [Junior End-Time Teens] age (11 to
13 years), that a council of people was called. It had become apparent that
some of the teenagers did not have the same commitment to the way of life
of The Family as their parents (it [sic] wasn‘t so much that they didn‘t have
the same beliefs as their parents, they probably did, but they didn‘t share
the same enthusiasm and commitment and many of them [were] bored and
felt there was no challenge in their life [sic] and nothing to do.) We felt that
the solution lay in providing for the teenagers the sense of enthusiasm that
we had when we first joined the Children of God in the early ‗70s to bring
[to] them a sense of excitement and adventure and to enlarge their vision
and the goals of what it means to be in [T]he [F]amily, and that is basically
what we try to do with the Victor programme (quoted in Ward, 1995: 163).
While this Family member gave a positive interpretation of her organization‘s creation of the
Victor program, a Family publication suggested that, in some cases, the resistance of the
young to the lifestyles of their parents had become pronounced. Indeed, a 1991 Family
publication by Maria (entitled ―Jett/Teen Discipleship Revolution Needed Now‖) concluded,
―we have a big worldwide emergency with all our Jetts ...‖ (Quoted in Ward, 1995: 168).
Hints at the depth of this resistance appeared in a 1990 Family publication, which indicated
that ―a number of teens‖ required special supervision. One can suppose that Family
leadership believed these young people were on paths leading out of the organization, so
their attitudes, views, and behaviors were causing problems for other teens (and possibly
for their parents or guardians). A Family document put it this way: