My name is Leika Ito. I am 21 years old and live in Japan. Never heard of me? Well, I have no claims to my name. I am just one of many who have grown up in the ‘Family International’ and have chosen to dedicate my life to this cause in which I firmly believe.

I’ve decided to write in response to those who have accused us all (which would include myself) of being “abused” and caught in a “dangerous and harmful” environment. How they can be so presumptuous as to know all about my life, I haven’t the faintest idea. However, as they feel so free to air their one-sided opinions, I feel it only fair to reply with my own.

To explain a bit about myself, my mother joined this organization with my sisters and me when I was three months old. My childhood memories are happy ones (that’s not a typo-they are happy) consisting of travels, dance and song performances, visiting and encouraging the poor, not to mention excursions and special outings, sports, and all the things kids typically like to do. Since the age of fourteen, I’ve been involved in teaching children, secretarial work, cooking, home care, musical performances, salesmanship, and the list goes on. Two years ago I went to India where I spent a year learning about a new culture, a new language, and seeing the miracles of lives changed. While there, we organized medical camps for the slum children, visited and encouraged brain tumor patients, and held seminars for company executives and their employees. Since returning to Japan, my main work has been being a full-time teacher for a class of primary-aged children, pretty much every day of the week. This has been both challenging and fulfilling.

I’ve been to several countries, speak two languages, enjoy meeting and interacting with people from all walks of life, am a certified teacher and am currently working towards obtaining a certificate in Public relations and youth counseling. Sound abused? Well, to those of you who have alleged so, may I suggest that before making such a broad sweeping statement, you check your dictionary to be sure you know what the word means?

I have a perfectly capable mind. I can make my own decisions and I take particular offense at these unfounded accusations that we are “brainwashed, abused” or what have you. I love what I do and I don’t know of anywhere else where life is built on such trust and love, where we learn to serve others instead of ourselves and where we can have such a wide variety of training in so many different aspects of life. I don’t only speak for myself either. If some see fit to say we are all “abused” based on a few people’s accounts, then I guess I should say that none of us have ever been abused based on my account and the accounts of others here that I know and have lived with.

I know what I want out of life. I want to continue to dedicate my life to helping others. I want to continue doing what I do and experiencing satisfaction, fulfillment, challenge and yes, fun. I know that this life is not for everyone, but when I look around me at peers my age—those who still don’t know what they want to do with their life, those whose only aim is to make their grades, those who undergo severe depression and even attempt suicide because of the pressures they face, those who fall into vice, crime or drugs, it makes me wonder why their life is supposed to be better than mine. If that is “normal”, then I pray to God that I’ll never be “normal.”

As far as allegations of child abuse, well what can I say? How many times must we go over the same thing? Really, don’t you think you should try a new line? It’s getting old and if you are really convinced of our guilt, then why not direct those concerns toward the judges who’ve found us innocent in every case? Reading the news every day, it seems to me that crimes such as abuse, robbery, rape and even murder are becoming more and more of a common occurrence in society at large. Can you honestly say your environment is so much safer than ours?

I’m not saying we’re perfect. I know mistakes have been made and I feel for those of you who’ve had it rough. But how many times do you want our apologies? –Enough already. If you’re going to view our every fault through a microscope, then use that microscope to tell also of the good we do accomplish and the lives that we have helped to change. If our management should take responsibility for everything done to everyone in our organization in the past, should the government of every country have to do the same where these crimes are commonplace?–You see the lunacy of such a statement.

Quite a few of my friends and relatives have left our organization. They’ve decided that they wanted to do something different with their life. They’re happy and I respect their decisions, just as I respect yours. Can you not try to respect mine as well?

Your accusations and so called “truths” do not “awaken” me to anything. In fact, all you’ve done is made my resolve to stay right here stronger. I wish I could understand where you’re coming from—but when all that comes out is slander, threats and vindictive accusations, it causes me to wonder whether you’re truly happy and “free” now. As you seem to care so much about our welfare and “freeing” us all from our “abusive” and “harmful” environments, why don’t you take those caring, helpful concerns and put them to good use by helping those around you who have truly been abused.

Until I find something better, I’m sticking with my life as it is. Why don’t you get a life too? It is my sincere prayer that you’ll find the life that you’ve always wanted and that it will bring you great satisfaction, peace and happiness, just as mine has for me.

Leika Ito is a second-generation member of The Family International