Jehovah’s Witnesses' Child Abuse Policy When you compare Jehovah’s Witnesses with all other religions or secular organizations, Witnesses have the best record for protecting its members from child molesters, fornicators and other perverts. Most other religions did nothing about priests and ministers who were child molesters and homosexual deviants, and continued to simply transfer these clergy to other congregations when found out. But, Jehovah's Witnesses would instantly remove these individuals from serving in any teaching capacity when they were found out and disfellowship them. What is reprehensible is that other religions constantly criticized the Witnesses for their disfellowshipping policy. Now, these religions, Protestant and Catholic, are facing thousands of legal cases and paying enormous settlements. At the same time, any legal charges against the Watchtower Society has repeatedly been dismissed by the courts because they determined that Witnesses have NEVER hidden child molesters nor have they ever just transferred Elders accused of molestation to another congregation. So historically Witnesses have the BEST legal record of any religion. Even the recent adverse decision by one rogue jury in the Conti case was not because we transferred a known child molester–the man had already been reproved and removed from any position in the congregation. And the jury went completely contrary to the legal precedents set in similar cases against other religions. That is, no religion has ever been legally required to make a public announcement of a congregant’s specific sexual misdeeds. In fact, doing so would have broken the law in most countries. While thousands of Protestant clergy and thousands of Catholic priests were charged with child abuse in the last decades, only a little over a dozen Witness Elders have been charged in the last 100 years (See: Jehovah’s Witnesses care for victims of child abuse - Jehovah’s Witnesses Official Media Web Site - Archive) In official polls between 25% and 40% of clergy admitted that they had engaged in sexual behavior with some member of their flock and about 15% of clergy are homosexual. And most religions do almost nothing about these clergy! So, a more valid question would be to ask if other religions have continued to allow fornicators, homosexuals and adulterers to be ministers, priests and teachers?!! But, among the Witnesses the very few elders who commit immoral acts are instantly removed and most likely disfellowshipped. The media and opposers like to sensationalize a couple of cases where someone was not removed immediately, but those cases are anomalies and occurred only because the organization’s policies were improperly ignored by individual elders. Also many like to misrepresent the “two witness” rule. This rule has NEVER prevented removal of a child molester. It never took more than one witness for someone to be reported to the authorities for molestation and even before the current government laws on reporting molestations were passed, Witnesses still investigated all accusations and disfellowshipped many without requiring two witnesses. And definitely, when someone was accused of molesting *different* children then there are two witnesses and they would be disfellowshipped. In actuality, I've seen the courts several times dismiss charges against child molesters who have been disfellowshipped by Witnesses. To see the actual facts regarding this subject go to: http://thirdwitness.com/childabuse/default.html http://defendingjehovahswitnesses.blogspot.com/2009/11/jehovahs-witnesses-and-child-protection.html SOURCE: This is an answer by BAR_ANERGES to a question at Yahoo Answers.
