Houston’s La Luz del Mundo church leaders enabled sexual abuse for years, former members say
Former member and survivor of the organization La Luz Del Mundo, Raquel Haifa Chantres, 43 hugs a young girl after she spoke to press about the abuse she experienced along with other young people at the hands of the churches pastors, ministers and leaders on Friday March 31, 2023 at La Luz Del Mundo in Houston.
The Houston news conference was prompted because one local family who recently reported the man they say abused a congregant when she was young. The manipulation starts from a young age, she said, as she recalled one incident from her adolescence when the second apostle, Samuel Joaquín Flores, told her to wash his feet, alluding to the anointing of Jesus.
A 38-year-old woman said she endured physical and emotional abuse after the church coerced her into marrying one of its former leader’s grandsons when she was 15. The marriage lasted three years, and the woman said she became depressed and attempted suicide when she was 18.The woman did not leave the church until after her teenage daughter told her in 2021 that she had been sexually abused as a child by Juan Gabriel Perez, who was a relative and fellow church member.
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