Meet David Wernsman, Kidnapped and Beaten at 17 for Being Gay

His parents sent him to a school in the Dominican Republic run by U.S. Christians who beat and humiliated him.

David Wernsman, age 17, tells a filmmaker he’s “deathly afraid” school staff will find out he told her why he’s at the school. He knows staff will brutally beat him for telling the truth. His fears were later realized. Screenshot from ‘Kidnapped for Christ.’

The U.S. troubled-teen industry has been in the headlines a lot lately. Maia Szalavitz recently wrote for the New York Times (free link) that the industry offers trauma, not…