New challenges for Jehovah’s Witnesses: “A mass exodus is underway”

Updated June 2, 2024Published June 2, 2024

SVT Nyheter

Jehovah’s Witnesses are facing new challenges today when defectors speak out on social media, says journalist Jenny Küttim, who herself grew up as a Witness and later came to examine the movement.

– I am impressed by how Ida spreads knowledge on Tiktok, she says.

At the same time, she highlights the importance of Norway’s decision to withdraw the state subsidy for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country.

Ida is a defector who now uses her social media to talk about her upbringing within the religious community. Where she also got in touch with several others who are thinking about or have chosen to leave.

– When children grow up and find out about, in their world, “forbidden channels”, social media, they find it easier to leave. And there is a kind of mass exodus of young defectors going on all over the world, says Jenny Küttim.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have chosen not to participate but write that they themselves do not see any mass exodus of young people.

Withdrawn state subsidy in Norway: “Psychological violence”

On March 4, the Norwegian state decided to stop giving Jehovah’s Witnesses state subsidies and they are no longer allowed to be a registered religious community. According to the verdict, the reason is the religious practice that exists around excluding and freezing out children who break the movement’s rules. The state argues that this practice constitutes “psychological violence and negative social control”.

– The Norwegian state is very clear that it is not compatible with Norwegian democracy to practice social isolation or control of children, because young people also have freedom of expression, says Jenny.

In Sweden, Jehovah’s Witnesses received state subsidies for the first time in 2021 after winning a long dispute against the government , which previously denied the religious community state subsidies, among other things, because they urged members not to vote in elections.

The organizational contribution is paid out quarterly. So far this year, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden have received 915,608 kroner in organizational grants, according to the Authority for Support to Religious Communities.