"The response of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses and Watchtower Bible
and Tract Society of Australia
Ltd to allegations of child
sexual abuse".
This report is 110 pages. It is imperative to look it up on the ARC website each and every one of you.
ARC report released today.. and phew!
by zeb 30 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
-
zeb
-
Xanthippe
Thanks Zeb, there's a lot to read for later but I'm just putting up the ARCs conclusion for now. So I suppose this will be submitted to the Australian government and then we will see.
We do not consider the Jehovah’s Witness organisation to be an organisation which responds adequately to child sexual abuse. We do not believe that children are adequately protected from the risk of sexual abuse for the following reasons:
-
The organisation relies on outdated policies and practices to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse. Also, those policies and practices are not subject to ongoing and continuous review. The policies and practices are, by and large, wholly inappropriate and unsuitable for application in cases of child sexual abuse. The organisation’s retention and continued application of policies such as the two-witness rule in cases of child sexual abuse shows a serious lack of understanding of the nature of child sexual abuse.
-
The organisation’s internal disciplinary system for addressing complaints of child sexual abuse is not child or survivor focused in that it is presided over by males and offers a survivor little or no choice about how their complaint is addressed.
-
The sanctions available within the organisation’s internal disciplinary system are weak and leave perpetrators of child sexual abuse at large in the organisation and the community.
-
In deciding the sanctions to impose and/or precautions to take in relation to a known or suspected perpetrator, the organisation has inadequate regard to the risk that that perpetrator might reoffend. This demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of the nature and impact of child sexual abuse.
-
The organisation’s general practice of not reporting serious instances of child sexual abuse to police or authorities – in particular, where the complainant is a child – demonstrates a serious failure by the organisation to provide for the safety and protection of children in the organisation and in the community.
-
-
zeb
This report was set into being by the signature of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth and is something that will go to the Australian Federal Government for consideration as to what to do ie changes to law, prosecutions or compensations whatever.
For those in other countries please don't just look at this and go 'wow'. Contact your own govt officials and ask for an in depth inquiry to be set in place there. Laws will differ country to country but the impetus of this bold and brave inquiry in a little country like Australia should not be lost.
The wt will be burning the midnight oil already doing damage control so I suggest everyone download and print out this report so you can have it at hand to read, read, read again to fully digest commit to memory what it says.
For me out of all the matters raised and all the answers given there are two that stand out as pinnacles.
One that the scriptures say"stand before the judges and the words you need will be given you". Keep this mind and consider ,
Two, the shambling bumbling responses by the elders and then a GB member when he had to answer the questions put to him. Go to the ARC site and look these up if you have not already.
-
slimboyfat
Australia isn't a little country. It's massive. In fact it's perhaps the only country that can also claim to be a continent.
-
zeb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuWT4flyl-k
and this where the gb member Jackson made his famous 'presumptuous ' statement. This statement will follow him to the grave.
...................................................................................................................................
My heartfelt thanks to those of you who have given me your kind support in this awe full part of my life. The mills of the Gods grind well be it they grind slowly. I can only hope that the inquiry meters out to the WT a due compense it is due and to the victims and the many who did not submit their stories a sense that the wrongs done will be seen in bright new light of the Royal Commission.
My thanks goes too the hardworking professional officers of the Commission who heard with every kindness my phoned submissions as well as the emails I sent them. Whatever may come to the lesser or greater of the Commissions findings you have done a fine thing. thankyou.
-
stan livedeath
when some one here has read through it all--will they kindly give a brief summary so i can read it.
a sentence will do.
-
darkspilver
zeb: ARC report released today.. and phew!
thanks,
I believe it was discussed here when it was released at the end of November 2016, around three months ago?
See also
http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2016-11/report-into-jehovah%E2%80%99s-witness-organisations-releas
and
-
cofty
Thank you Zeb. With be reading that in full this evening.
-
kpop
Good find! I hope they can put the pressure on the JW cult enough to force them to shut down.
-
Half banana
Have you noticed that the GB response is not to say, "How can we help the abused and protect against further abuse happening? This would be the humane and compassionate response to a situation where the vulnerable were being exploited, wouldn't it?
Not so in the JW org, no siree! The response is to limit the financial damage to their golden egg laying operation at HQ and claim they are not to blame. Put the onus on local congregations, limit the liability of the Watchtower companies involvement and claim they were only acting in line with the scriptures. It is a living demonstration of how foolish it really is to pedantically use the Bible as a life guide, it is thousands of years out of date.
They have made the Watchtower in Australia a limited company which means it can only pay out what it owns and as I understand there is a sudden rush to make all congregations financially autonomous.
The fact is that as the courts have clearly recognized in cases such as the Conti trial, that the JW organisation however it morphs into various other legal companies or uses new labelling strategies, is now for all its bleating, considered to be a "hierarchical" religion, the people at the top take all the stick.
The paradox being that for years under Rutherford up until the 1980s, responsibility was held at local level but due to the worldly pride and lust for money and a desire for total control, JW HQ forced ownership of all Kingdom halls to be relinquished locally and to be thereafter owned by themselves. So nowadays the Watchtower is an "organised religion" like the Roman Catholic Church and likewise responsible for the consequences of all its policies and teachings which are disseminated from the top-downwards.
I noticed a contrast between the JW org and the Roman Catholic Church response to the abuse enquiry in that the latter have supplied all details and approach it wishing to resolve the matters in a spirit of cooperation. The GB are extremely defensive, uncooperative and imagine that quoting scriptures will get them off the hook.