(RNS) The Association of Baptists for World Evangelism has released a 280-page report revealing how its leaders failed to stop a leading missionary surgeon from sexually abusing 22 women and girls.
Starting in 1961, missionary Donn Ketcham served at Memorial Christian Hospital in Malumghat, southeast Bangladesh. He was fired in 1989, for sexually abusing an underage teenage girl, who was labeled as a “willing partner” and coerced to confess.
But the new report, released Tuesday (May 10), shows a far wider trail of abuse, which began in 1964 and continued until 1989.
“We’re devastated by the negligence of ABWE leadership in failing to remove Ketcham from the field again and again,” said the family of the underage teen survivor. “We wish that ABWE leaders could comprehend the immeasurable pain that this … continues to cause her even to this day.”
Over the course of his professional life, Ketcham abused at least 22 individuals, the report concludes. Many were his patients, and some (as young as 8) were given unnecessary pelvic and breast exams. There is evidence that several were heavily drugged with the anesthetic ketamine. (more...)
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