Pretoria - Moments of madness – everyone has them. However, the Dalai Lama should have known better when he asked a young boy to suck his tongue in India in February.
The globally acclaimed Tibetan spiritual leader, 87, who lives in India in permanent exile, has since apologised to the boy and his family as well as his friends across the world for the hurt his words may have caused.
In a trending video, the boy approached the Nobel Peace Prize winner and asked him: “Can I hug you?”
The elderly Tibetan then replied, “first here”, prompting the boy to give him a hug and a kiss. Pointing to his lips, he said “then I think finally here also”.
He then pulls the boy’s chin and kisses him on the mouth. “And suck my tongue,” he said.
Intentionally harming a child over a period of time or as a one-off constitutes child abuse.
In India, the law calls for strict punishment for the perpetrators of child sexual abuse. The punishment for sexual assault on a child under the age of 12 years is imprisonment for a minimum of 20 years, which may extend to life imprisonment.
The Dalai Lama, as a spiritual leader of all people, knows all about apology and forgiveness; it is written that “he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone”.
But the apology does not exempt him from facing the consequences of his actions.
Pretoria News