News Flash: New Reveal Article

by Sugar Shane 116 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

• 

  konceptual99

  Mandatory reporting is red herring and does have some of it's own potentially negative implications.

  The point is about whether or not the organisation (and I mean any org here) is predicated to support an alleged victim or not. Many organisations have made significant changes to policies and practices to try and reduce the chance of internal process putting blocks in the way of reporting and criminal investigations.

  Regardless of public statements, the WT Society has had a long standing culture where abuse victims have not been well supported, where they have not felt empowered to report and where alleged perpetrators have been able to exploit internal processes to evade both internal sanction and external investigation.

  The organisation repeatedly has refused to acknowledge poor practice, not made the processes and policies open and transparent, baulked at the implementation of any kind of meaningful best practice, left elders floundering with simplistic instructions that encourage lack of cooperation and continued to claim there is nothing wrong.

  All you hear is excuses, never any recognition that mistakes have been made or that the organisation can take unilateral steps to ensure that abuse allegations are properly handled in line with current best practice and secular expectations.
• 

  Skedaddle

  I skipped a few pages so apologies if someone has already said this but here is my humble view;

  1. Any religion seeking privilage for confidentiality when sins are confessed where a CRIME by law has been committed is SOLELY looking after it's own reputation and law writers should not let themselves be lobbied to allow it.

  2. Any religion that offers a service to it's worshipers whereby sins can be confessed to a CRIME by law, and all will be confidential and said sin will be washed clean by god by way of said confession is SOLELY looking after their own reputation.

  3. Offering spiritual help to a criminal should always exist and does so even inside prison.

  4. Offering spiritual help to a criminal is a seperate thing from reporting a crime. They are mutually exclusive.

  5. Mandatory reporting where a SERIOUS CRIME has been committed should be law.

  6. Confidential helplines exist for anybody, victim or offender, looking for advice, or confession and these calls should be handled by trained proffessionals to seek information on crime and report any clues to a perpatrator where serious crime has been committed.

  7. A sincere criminal feels he should pay for his crime. Anything else is not sincere, it's a game where the criminal is fooling himself.

  8. Any religious body calling themselves the truth should NOT seek to offer refuge physically to a criminal. It is NOT their function. It is ONLY their function to offer spiritual refuge - which can be done throughout the whole process of confession to the police and detention and is quite rightly, their right!

  9. For a religion to hide behind laws of the land instead of pioneering clean process is telling. They have a hand, in a game.
• 

  DATA-DOG

  It's really simple.

  If you are a Catholic priest, a Scientologists (Elder??), a Mormon Elder, or a JW Elder, or ANY religious authority figure ( Even if that authority is a mental construct by way of a "special relationship", as in the case of JWism.) and you hear of a serious crime or sexual crime, espescially against children, then it is my opinion that such admissions/confessions should not be swept under the rug on religious grounds.

  If you claim that your calling is to render spiritual assistance, that's great. Go to your local prison and render spiritual assistance to the child abuser that came to you and confessed, and was found guilty in court after a proper investigation. Then go render spiritual assistance to the abused, and the family. Your words will have credence because you did not shield the abuser from the consequences of their deplorable "sin" which also happens to be a crime.

  Religious idealists who believe they cannot violate their most holy duty to guard the confession of ONE person, are making a mockery of their calling by neglecting the other 99%.

  Protecting the abuser does not help the abuser in the long-run. Protecting the abuser does not reduce the risk to potential victims, it merely increases the odds that the abuser will move on to another location and re-offend. This has been proven time after time. Protecting the abuser under the guise of a holy calling, certainly does not help the abused or future victims.

  If a just, moral God actually exists, then that God must also be ethical. Therefore, that God has no choice but to be disgusted with immoral and unethical behavior, regardless of the present legalities that may exist. If you don't understand that, then you don't truly understand Jesus' lessons against legalism. If you don't understand why legalism is so wrong, chances are, you are legalistic in your thinking. If so, you have a lot of nerve to call yourself an Xian or "One True Xians".

  Lastly, if there is a God, then YOU, Mr. Legalism, had better be worried.

  D-Dog's advice for religious authority figures:

  1) Report Crimes to protect the other 99% of God's children which you profess to love.

  2) Let the Authorities investigate. Perhaps you can aid the authorities while comforting the alleged criminal, thereby fulfilling your calling.

  3) If the congregant is found guilty and sentenced, go visit your congregant in prison. You can show love to the abuser/criminal while not enabling them or further harming the victim or future victims.

  DD
• 

  blondie

  I have asked elders since reporting child abuse to law enforcement needs WTS approval, does reporting a murder require validation first by the WTS?

  I ask if it were their child that had been abused or been murdered, would they expect the WTS to handle it?

  Always hesitation then silence.
• 

  Simon

  Fisherman: do you think any law that protects abusers would be inspired by god or by satan? If the latter, they why do your religious leaders feel so happy to hide behind such a law? If the former then why isn't is a surprise that your religious leaders hide behind it and your religion is so riddled with problems when your god is a deviant?

  The rush for the WTS to be classed as clergy is astonishing after all the years spent trying to make out they were somehow different.

  At a fundamental level, shouldn't "the one true religion" be a beacon of light and insist in doing the right thing rather than looking for legal clauses and protections from accountability at every turn ... often at the expense of victims.

  Inspired organization? The evidence suggests the tax service is more divine than the WTS.
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  Fisherman

  DD either you are not reading or you can't read. The church refuses to go to jail because Caesar does not want her there. There is no efficacy in child abuse reporting laws with jail bars that provide too much of a protective gap between the sinner and the one hearing the confession, like the distance between words and the one trying to use his word processor -if you know what I mean.
  
• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  Fisherman: do you think any law that protects abusers would be inspired by god or by satan? If the latter, they why do your religious leaders feel so happy to hide behind such a law? If the former then why isn't is a surprise that your religious leaders hide behind it and your religion is so riddled with problems when your god is a deviant?

  Excellent point. I'd never really thought of that before.

  I can't see Fisherman giving a good rebuttal to this post.
• 

  Fisherman

  hide behind such a law?

  Simon, I see your point. But the legislation that you are referring to was not drafted for the purpose of offering any protection to the WT or any other church, it was put in place to protect the freedom of speech of the sinner -not the church. It is a legal guarantee (to the sinner) of freedom of speech and communication without any fear of being turned over to the police by the church.

  As for good and bad, Simon, my dad always told me that history is written by those that win the wars. Good and bad does not make any difference to JW movement until Wt and their God are defeated, and if they win, they get to write history. In the meantime, good and bad is only an opinion that is being fought by both sides.
  
• 

  Simon

  But the legislation that you are referring to was not drafted for the purpose of offering any protection to the WT or any other church,

  Funny ... but complete BS. They and their adherents are the ones so determined to defend the law that they hide behind, not victim advocacy groups.

  This, coupled with the fact that it only benefits them tells you who the laws were written for - those with influence, not poor kids who need some protection.
• 

  Simon

  As for good and bad, Simon, my dad always told me that history is written by those that win the wars. Good and bad does not make any difference to JW movement until Wt and their God are defeated, and if they win, they get to write history. In the meantime, good and bad is only an opinion that is being fought by both sides.

  So if the WTS "win" then child abuse cover ups are OK? That is insane - your dad is an idiot and it may be genetic. History is nothing at all to do with right and wrong. If the nazis had won, it would not have made genocide OK or right.

  There IS such things as right and wrong that are absolute - your problem is you rely on a crooked bunch of perverts to say what those are. No surprise that you get a warped viewpoint as a result. Religions are homes for the morally bankrupt - the rest of us can see things very, very clearly.