Swami Satyananda Saraswati.

Children living at Australia's oldest yoga ashram were starved, tortured and drugged, according the evidence presented at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Families who brought their children to the Satyananda Yoga Ashram in the 1970s and 1980s thought they were giving them a better life but the commission heard the youngsters were subjected to horrific sexual and physical abuse.

A former child resident, given the pseudonym APK, told the commission she was forced to expose her genitals to ashram members and drugged with morphine for minor ailments.

History: Satyananda is Australia's oldest yoga ashram. Photo: Shane Arnold

She said she witnessed the torture of children as young as four after she moved to the ashram with her family when she was aged nine in 1978.

Advertisement

Her older sister, given the pseudonym APL, told the commission that sexual activity was banned at the ashram and those who disobeyed were punished by its leader Swami Akhandananda Saraswati.

Children went on what they called "f--- patrol" across the ashram's grounds at Mangrove Mountain on the central coast to see if any adults were being intimate.

"If Akhandananda found out that any of the swamis were having sex with each other he would publicly shame them and sometimes beat them," she said.

Read more from the original source:
Ashram children told to spy on adults having sex, royal commission hears