‘Jehovah’s Witnesses destroy child abuse evidence’

This video from Britain says about itself:

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Child Abuse – Is there a problem?

1 March 2016

In the summer of 2002 I had my first taste of the controversy surrounding child abuse mishandling when, as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was warned about a BBC Panorama program titled “Suffer the Little Children,” which exposed widespread molestation within the religion of my birth. After waking up from my indoctrination in 2010 I realized that, far from being “apostate-driven lies and dishonesties” (as one Governing Body member recently put it), the problem is bigger than anyone can fully comprehend.

To read some of the documents cited in this video, please download this PDF.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

“Jehovah’s Witnesses Cover Up Evidence of Child Abuse”

The organization Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Netherlands has for years kept records of allegations of child sexual abuse. This is what RTL News reports. Victims fear that the reports will be destroyed and that evidence will be lost.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own kind of courts, committees of “elders” within the society. They judge about missteps that members of the movement commit. These are not severe punishments: the maximum sentence is excommunication.

According to RTL there are dozens or possibly hundreds of reports of internal lawsuits in the archives of Jehovah’s Witnesses. These consist of cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses accused of sexual abuse, with details or even confessions. But the documents are not shared with the police. That is not the policy of the organisation. …

Raymond Hintjes of the Reclaimed Voices foundation, which defends the interests of victims, says that about 220 abuse reports have been received. …

The fear that reports will be destroyed is based on experiences with other Jehovah’s branches in the world, says Hintjes. “That happened in various places, for example in Australia, Great Britain and the United States.”