2023-09-17 20:47:00
The industrial tribunal ordered the Universal Reception Center to pay nearly a million euros to a pastor, a victim of “modern slavery” for 25 years.
By Isabelle Missiaen for Le Point The Universal Reception Center, an evangelist church, has just been ordered to pay damages to a pastor for unworthy working conditions. (Illustrative image) © Jean-Luc Flémal / MAXPPP / BELPRESS/MAXPPP Published on 09/17/2023 at 8:47 p.m.
Borba, 50, has just won his industrial tribunal case against the Universal Reception Center, an evangelical church for which he worked for 25 years… without a single day off. The pastor and his wife told the Parisian the unworthy conditions in which they had lived all these years, in several offices in Île-de-France. Extended hours, lack of leave, obligatory vasectomy… He claims to be just one victim among others.
The pastor officiated in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), and even Évry-Courcouronnes (Essonne). Everywhere, the church subjected him to infernal paces: he could work up to 18 hours a day. “Even when we were injured or sick, we were asked to hold the service,” he remembers. To ensure his complete dedication, his superiors even forced him to undergo a vasectomy, “because we wouldn’t be available enough if we had children,” Borba says.
Three other pastors want to file a complaint
“But my case is not unique, this way of treating us is completely classic in this institution,” assures the pastor. This is confirmed by his lawyer, Me Marc Montagnier, who was contacted by several other officers: “In the name of God, pastors are asked to sacrifice themselves, it is modern slavery,” denounces the lawyer. Three other people are reportedly preparing to file complaints against the church.
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The industrial tribunal ordered the Universal Reception Center to pay nearly one million in damages in favor of the pastor and his wife. A decision of exceptional magnitude for an individual. The church has appealed this decision but must, in the meantime, carry out the sentence. “I thank God, he is not guilty of the attitude of men,” comments Borba. It was he who gave me the strength to endure the rejection and then the abandonment of all my loved ones and peers since I left the Church. »
The Universal Reception Center has around fifteen places of worship in Île-de-France alone, as well as several tens of thousands of faithful. This church is in the sights of the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes), which has already made around sixty referrals against it since 2015.
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