A Tibetan teen raped by an American priest under the guise of giving her a new life in the US will feature on the celebrity talk show hosted by Oprah Winfrey to focus attention on children forced into sexual slavery. Phuntsok Meston, now a married woman living in the US, spoke about her ordeal to Oprah in a Chicago studio this month. Meston and her family had escaped from Tibet to Dharamshala in India via Nepal and lived in a refugee camp there in the 1980s when she went through a succession of traumas as a teenager. Meston and two of her cousins, all of them teenagers, fell into the clutches of Mack W. Mitchell, then pastor of the Unitarian churches in Westborough and Northborough. Mitchell promised Meston's father he would educate the girls and give them a new life in the US. In 1985, they were brought to Mitchell's farmhouse in Northborough where he is said to have raped and assaulted them. Despite the accusations, Meston was the only one who testified against the priest. So, though there were about 20 charges of rape, indecent assault and battery against Mitchell, he served only about three years in prison. However, the Unitarian church removed him from his post in 1992, the year he was convicted. Now, more than a decade later, the case will hit the headlines again with Oprah deciding to include an interview with Meston in her show that will also feature singer Ricky Martin. Martin is president of the Ricky Martin Foundation, which runs campaigns against child slavery. It has not yet been decided when the programme will go on air. Oprah's shows are beamed in both India and Nepal on satellite channels.
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