A sign which welcomes people to Gloriavale Christian Community. Photo: RNZ / Jean Edwards
Gloriavale women were entrapped, enslaved and lived in servitude at the "misogynist" Christian community, the Employment Court has heard.
Barrister Brian Henry used his closing submission in the long-running hearing to claim Gloriavale was forced by its growth to turn to child labour, denying members freedom, choice and a voice.
Chief judge Christina Inglis reserved her decision in the case, which seeks to determine whether six former Gloriavale women were employees, rather than volunteers.
Henry said the women he represented were destined to a life of drudgery on the community's domestic teams from the day they were born.
"These women are dominated from birth, they are controlled from birth. The moment they were born, there was a pathway for them to work on the teams," he said.
"The moment the shepherds decided they would entrap children, they would line out a path of child labour, they would line out a path of working for nothing more than your keep, they became slaves.
"That is the plan and it's a plan that's been sitting under the nose of the bureaucratic establishment for a long, long time."
Henry said evidence of men's dominance over women was clearly detailed in Gloriavale's foundational document, What We Believe.
"We've heard there have been hundreds of visits in the last couple of years by the establishment. This court has the power, it has the tools and the law and it has the courage to say today, enough," he said.
Henry said Gloriavale deliberately isolated children, who were expected to work to keep the growing West Coast community running, with education aimed at cooking, cleaning and washing.
"It's a deliberate entrapment of children. It's an entrapment deliberately done after a deliberate decision to build a community through the breeding of children.
"Those children once entrapped are put to work. They're put to work because they have to be, because the community is so out of balance with adults they have been forced by their growth to turn them to child labour. Having entrapped them, they've also enslaved them.
"The plaintiffs never had freedom in Gloriavale."
The Gloriavale compound on the West Coast. Photo: RNZ / Jean Edwards
The six women claim they worked long, hard hours on Gloriavale's domestic teams, preparing food, cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry, and were exposed to workplace sexual harassment.
Henry said the behaviour of Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 1995 for indecent assault, was so unChristian it should have disqualified him from the leadership.
"The shepherds knew what he'd done. They knew their rules. The truth is, they were either too scared or too intimidated to stand up to Hopeful Christian," he said.
"We end up with the plaintiffs through the majority of their young lives under his power and control, deliberately entrapped, no money, living in a misogynist community. They were forced to work and obey another and he considered them their property."
By signing the Declaration of Commitment, the women were "unknowingly or unwittingly committing themselves to a life in a Christian community that was a haven for sex offenders," Henry said.
None of the members had access to money because it was controlled by the leaders, particularly the overseeing shepherd and then-financial controller Fervent Stedfast, Henry said.
He said the community's children were supported by Working for Families payments, while the men's money went towards buying property like Lake Brunner Station.
"The intention is simply to buy and build properties at the detriment of money going to the women and children. They say they look after them, they say they love them, but the reality is the bulk of the money is going to property development," he said.
"The decision of the male-dominated society was not to use that money to give the women and children a better life. The women are entrapped and they're bullied, they're bullied into submission."
A community building at Gloriavale. Photo: RNZ / Jean Edwards
On Wednesday Gloriavale told the court the women worked about 34 hours on a typical four-day rotation and 37 now, which equated to about 45 hours per week.
Last year plaintiff Serenity Pilgrim told the court she worked an average of 90 hours per week.
Henry said the women worked six days a week, with different rules on Sundays, so their hours were far greater than Gloriavale's calculations.
"The reason we point to the excessive hours is because it's important that they have the minimum conditions imposed so that their hours are brought back to be reasonable," he said.
"It's not just about being paid. It's about the conditions that they're working under."
Henry said there was a very strong case for declaring the women were Gloriavale employees.
"The control over them is absolute and deliberate. The entrapment is deliberate, the male dominance is deliberate, their powerlessness is by design. The intention is to have women enslaved," he said.
"They are not seeking to attack Gloriavale, they're not seeking to attack the religious community, they're just seeking to have their position clarified by the court," he said.
Counsel assisting the court Robert Kirkness earlier said Gloriavale's religious convictions were not on trial.
"This case is not, in my submission, and should not be understood as an attack on the religious convictions of Gloriavale or those of its members. It also does not involve an attack on the communal way of life," he said.
"There was, throughout a lot of the briefs at least, a misconception that this was somehow an attack on their way of life and they were defending it. That's simply not the case."
Chief judge Christina Inglis said the case had raised difficult issues for the plaintiffs, Gloriavale's leadership and the many witnesses who gave evidence in court.
"At times this case has probably felt like a bit of a marathon to those people involved in it, but I do want to acknowledge the way the hearing has been conducted and the work each of the representatives has put in along the way, it's really assisted me," she said.