Kanakuk, one of the largest Christian summer camp ministries in the United States, opposed its inclusion on the Dirty Dozen List of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) saying, “This is simply not true.”
According to NCOSE, the Dirty Dozen List was their annual campaign featuring 12 mainstream entities for enabling, regularizing, and benefiting from sexual abuse and exploitation. "Since 2013, the Dirty Dozen List has led to major victories in stemming harm: catalyzing significant improvements at Google, Netflix, TikTok, Hilton Worldwide, Verizon, Walmart, the U.S. Department of Defense, and many more mainstream institutions," said NCOSE.
"Sadly, this represents yet another example of an organization with good intentions falling prey to false narratives so easily spread online and through social media," said Kanakuk in a statement released following its inclusion to "Dirty Dozen List."
According to Kanakuk, the reason why NCOSE was declared as a "mainstream entity for facilitating, enabling and profiting from abuse and exploitation," NCOSE relied upon sources that provide incomplete information and failed to verify inaccurate written reports by several authors and bloggers.
"NCOSE relied upon a website (run by an anonymous LLC) that claims to share "facts" but buries the following notice on their Contact page: The material [on this website] is for informational purposes only and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up to date," Kanakuk added.
One of the 'Proofs' NCOSE published to support their claims was an article published by The Dispatch in March 2021. Their exposé uncovered Pete Newman, a former camp counselor at Kanakuk who was guilty of sexual abuse to at least seven boys. According to the article, one prosecutor claimed that victims were probably much larger but can't confirm true numbers due to non-disclosure agreements.
Based on the report of The Christian Post, NCOSE sent two emails to Kanakuk requesting their full child protection policy. According to the email, the website just highlighted two parts and the policies have not been updated for two years.
However, Kanakuk dismissed the allegations questioning their child protection policy and how they handled the case of Pete Newman. In their statement, "We took action, including immediate termination and reporting of the individual involved." Kanakuk also claimed they enhanced their child protection policy called "Kanakuk Child Protection Plan." In contrast with the claims, they are also committed to supporting enforcement investigation and prosecution of the abuser.
"The investigation by law enforcement that resulted in the prosecution of Pete Newman did not result in any criminal or civil charges against Kanakuk leadership or staff," they added.
In an interview with Ashton Alarcon on Vice News, he recounted how was abused by Newman at the camp when he was just 12 years old. According to him, Kanakuks action wasn't sufficient. "You're doing public relations," said Alarcon.
Kanakuk however claimed its continuous work on ensuring that the incident in 2009 will not happen again. According to their statement, victims can reach out to them for help and support in their healing journey.
