A Public Service Announcement from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

This public announcement was made in 2015. According to Anthony Morris, the Watchtower society has been proactive in alerting its members about the problem of child sexual abuse since 1987.

In the same year in Australia The Royal Commission held a public hearing in Sydney. The hearing ran for 7 days from Monday July27th to Wednesday August 5th and an 8^th day on Friday August 14th.

The public hearing inquired into the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing was to inquire into:

1. The experience of survivors of child sexual abuse within the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church in Australia.
2. The response of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd to allegations, reports or complaints of child sexual abuse within the Church.
3. The systems, policies and procedures in place within the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd for raising and responding to allegations of or concerns about child sexual abuse within the Church.
4. The systems, policies and procedures in place within the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd to prevent child sexual abuse within the Church.
5. Any related matters.

In October 2016, in a 110 page document they published their findings and on page 77 made the following recommendations to the Watchtower society:

Having regard to the various matters we have discussed in this report, we have reached a number
of general conclusions on the Jehovah’s Witness organisation’s response to the sexual abuse of
children.
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• The organisation relies on outdated policies and practices to respond to allegations of child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

Surely God’s loving organization has made significant improvements in its handling of this problem since then. Hasn’t it? Certainly they have by now apologized for any negligence on their part that led to the pain and suffering endured by the victims. Certainly by now they have joined the redress scheme in Australia recommended by the Royal Commission so that victims can receive an apology, and be compensated for medical and psychiatric treatment.

Surely by now they have instructed elders to report all allegations of child sexual abuse to the authorities. Especially since such laws do not conflict with God’s law. (See The Watchtower May 2019 page 10 paragraph 13)

Surely by now we would expect them to have alerted their congregants that such a problem exists not just in the world at large but even within their congregations, that even men serving in an appointed capacity have been perpetrators and that they have meticulously kept confidential records of it for decades.

We would expect them to share confidential records of such perpetrators with authorities so as to prevent these from victimizing children in the future either within or outside the congregation.

We would expect an organization run by men who imitate the God whose dominant quality is love (1 John 4:8) to either have the best child protection policies in place or to be humble enough to accept help in any areas such policies need improvement. Otherwise this public service announcement (PSA) would be nothing more than a public spin announcement. A vain attempt to merely give the impression that they protect their children, serving only the interests of the organization and its reputation.