Jehovah’s Witnesses Condemned In Investigation IICSA UK
The Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse in England did an in-depth study of religion and child abuse. The results of the investigation was a complete condemnation regarding the policies of Jehovah’s Witnesses with regard to protecting children. Over the last twenty years Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesman have stated numerous times that they “abhor” child abuse. Apparently this is now proven to be a complete lie. In fact they not only condone child molestation but openly encourage the molestations by creating a “pedophile paradise” to protect deviants by requiring “two eye-witnesses to the actual violation of a child. Victims are routinely expelled for trying to report or even warn others of the crimes against children committed and protected by elders in the congregations. If you want your child to be molested; become a Jehovah’s Witness. The report stated in part:
“IICSA Report - Conclusion 25:
25. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of few religious organisations which have an internal disciplinary process which can lead to the expulsion of members. The internal disciplinary processes of the Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to use a rule of corroborative evidence known outside the community as ‘the two-witness rule’, whereby in the absence of a confession the evidence of two material witnesses is required to establish an allegation, which can then lead to disfellowship for the purposes of internal discipline. The rule is not intended to be a safeguarding measure. Nevertheless, it has no place in any response to child sexual abuse and fails to reflect the reality that by its very nature child sexual abuse is most often perpetrated in the absence of witnesses. The rule’s capacity to cause harm to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse is clear. We have received first-hand evidence of this harm. As it presently operates, the Jehovah’s Witnesses internal disciplinary process for disfellowshipping members bears no relationship to how sexual crime happens. The continuing use of this rule shows a disregard of the seriousness of the crimes involved and their impact on children.”
A video following this highlighted exactly what was stated above:
JW’s do not report abuse and silence victims.
Media is also reporting on the matter stating:
2 Sep 2021
‘Shocking failures’ in child protection in religious institutions, report finds
Cathy NewmanPresenter
Religious institutions are failing to protect children from abuse, according to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
Their report into religious organisations found “shocking failures” in child protection.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, which have nearly 132,000 members in England and Wales, told the inquiry only 67 allegations had been reported to their branch office in a decade. We spoke to two former members of the group who were abused as children.
We put the allegations made in our report to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They told us the protection of children “is of the utmost concern and importance to all Jehovah’s Witnesses” and promised to “carefully and respectfully consider” all the recommendations made by the inquiry.
Warning: this report contains detail you may find distressing. And if you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in that report, you can go to channel4.com/support for help and advice.
‘She had little black patent shoes on’ – Justice for Sexual Abuse Survivors in Religious Organisations is Overdue
Astonishingly, instead of going to the police, one survivor says the Jehovah’s Witnesses made her give evidence to two elders, on her own, without either of her parents present.
Becky Armstrong-Corbett can’t be sure how old she was when she was first sexually abused, but she knows her feet didn’t reach the end of the chair, let alone touch the floor. Decades later, the memories of the abuse inflicted on her by a senior church leader are so painful she sometimes talks about what happened in the third person to try and distance herself from the details.
“Her feet only came to the edge of the chair. She had little black patent shoes on and she could see her face in those black patent shoes and she could see him behind her,” Armstrong-Corbett tells me on tonight’s Channel 4 News.
The little girl in patent shoes was, until she was 12 years old, abused by an “elder” – a leader – at the Kingdom Hall, the place of worship used by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“He had a massive big Bible and he would sit forward and there was a gap in the chair and he would pull my clothes up through that, leaning forward. I can very clearly remember the first time it happened: I fidgeted and I was taken outside and smacked ... And this happened until it got to a stage where the smacking was so hard I can remember not knowing whether I could breathe,” she recalls.
Eventually, aged 12, Armstrong-Corbett told her parents what had been going on, and they informed senior Jehovah’s Witnesses. Astonishingly, instead of going to the police, she says the organisation made her give evidence to two elders, on her own, without either of her parents present.
Armstrong-Corbett’s abuser was convicted of nine counts of sexual assault in 2017, decades after the abuse took place. She is one of many abuse survivors to submit her evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Today, the inquiry published a report saying there were “shocking failings” and “blatant hypocrisy” in the way religious groups handled abuse allegations. Leaders of 38 groups – from Christian and Islamic sects to Orthodox Judaism – discouraged reporting abuse to protect their reputations.
The years of delay in seeking and securing justice took a terrible toll on victims such as Armstrong-Corbett. When I ask her what difference it would have made to her life had it been reported to the police earlier, she again lapses into the third person. “That’s when I get emotional because I don’t know the full extent of how beautiful she might have been and how different her life might have been,” she tells me.
“If I’d have just had help, then I’d have been a different mother. I wouldn’t have had severe mental health difficulties; it would have made all the difference in the world – and I would have probably put a stop to self-harming at 12, instead of carrying it on and ultimately ... trying to take my own life.”
It’s a heartbreaking story, and sadly one that’s echoed in different circumstances by countless others. Given the scale of the organisation – there are nearly 9 million Jehovah’s Witnesses globally, and one and a half thousand congregations in England and Wales alone – survivors fear many instances of abuse go unreported.
It’s a religion that teaches its followers they’re God’s “chosen people”, and that outsiders are controlled by Satan. Inevitably, that – coupled with a belief they’re answerable only to God – breeds a deep mistrust of external authority.
We put the allegations in our report to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In a statement, they said the protection of children “is of the utmost concern and importance to all Jehovah’s Witnesses” and that they would “carefully and respectfully consider” all the observations and recommendations in the IICSA report.
Survivors are adamant the only way to protect other children in the faith is for religious organisations to have a legal duty to report allegations of child abuse to the police.
Britain currently lags the rest of the world on this. According to the campaign group Mandate Now, 80 per cent of the world’s jurisdictions have some form of mandatory reporting, but in the UK if a teacher, doctor or vicar receives a disclosure of abuse, there is no absolute obligation for them to tell the police. There’s guidance advising the likes of teachers, but no cast-iron consequences if people in a position of authority fail to report.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who’s spoken of his “shame and horror” at the way the Church has handled abuse allegations, told the inquiry in 2019 that he backed changing the law.
So why the wait? There’s speculation the inquiry will recommend mandatory reporting when it releases its final report, expected in the spring. For the little girl in black patent shoes, and other survivors trying painfully to rebuild their lives, that’s already decades overdue.
Cathy Newman presents Channel 4 News on weekdays at 7pm