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An Australian Group and the Case Over Its Children

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An Australian Group and the Case Over Its Children

The Family, also known as the Santiniketan Park Association, was an Australian group that formed in the 1960s and 1970s around Anne Hamilton-Byrne, a yoga teacher whom followers regarded as a divine figure, blending Christian, Hindu, and other ideas within an apocalyptic outlook. The aspect of the group that became a matter of public and legal record concerned children. The group gathered a number of children, some the biological children of members, others obtained through irregular arrangements, and raised them in a collective, secluded household, where they were presented as the offspring of Hamilton-Byrne, dressed alike with dyed-blonde hair, and, according to later accounts and investigations, subjected to strict discipline and administered drugs. These matters were investigated by the Victoria Police, and in 1987 authorities raided the property and removed the children from the group's care.

Hamilton-Byrne was later prosecuted; the charges she ultimately faced were relatively limited (relating to false declarations concerning the children's parentage), and the group's activities were never fully accounted for in court. She died in 2019. The case is documented in official inquiries, journalism, and the testimony of the former children, and is studied as an example of the harms that can arise when a closed group takes control of the upbringing of children.

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