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Have JWs solved 90% of the child abuse problems plaguing the rest of the world?


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This is actually a valid musing. I see the outrage regarding the child abuse issue as an evidence of one of the last sparks of morality in a dying and corrupt civilisation.  This issue has extrao

Allen, Your point should be the same as mine, and it would be a shame (literally) if it is isn't. I understand as well as anyone why you think that a knee-jerk reaction to protect the reputation of th

I love irony ! otherwise that would be an upvote. Hey! that quote is an "Elephant" AllenSmith could chew on !

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1 hour ago, Anna said:

Now I was just imagining that had this happened in America, and had this sister become bitter and years later decided to file a lawsuit (assuming the elder wasn't dead) a case may have been opened and who knows what else might have come to light. What I mean by that is what if he had molested other kids later? And here we would have a classic case of negligence by an elder body.....

Part of it is the "invisibility" of children. They were so much less important to the discussion in prior years, especially - not just among Witnesses. Elders were almost by definition patriarchal and patronizing to children. Children's claims of abuse were always considered serious, but due mostly to the extent that it was an older baptized person who was now in trouble for acting on their sinful thoughts. But it was rarely ever considered how dangerous this was to children through their later life. This is the main reason it is now considered a crime on par with rape. Not every child reacts in the same way, of course, but for a very high percentage as you know, it can completely ruin their life for the next 70+ years.

Not meaning to rehash, but we had a grope-y old 65 year old special pioneer in our congregation who managed to get a room in the large house of a sister who had two daughters. He constantly "accidentally" brushed against many young females. I pioneered with him and caught him doing the same "accidental" brushing getting in and out of the back car seat of a two-door car. And he never wanted to ride in front if there was chance to sit next to a sister in the back. The regular pioneer sisters (about 19, 19 and 22) wouldn't complain, but would just try their best to avoid his touches. When I noticed, they didn't want me to complain for them. No one wanted to get him in trouble. I learned that he had a couple of complaints that went to the elders from the sister he stayed with, but never lost his special pioneer status. She also kicked him out, I assume for the sake of her two daughters. But I remember it also took me a year of noticing before I complained to an elder (my father) and he told me they knew of his problem, and were "keeping an eye on him."

Of the three pioneer sisters who worked with him, one has drifted away, one was DF'd and never bothered to come back, and one got married and probably still laughs it off as she did then. I saw her at an assembly 3 years ago and she seemed happy. Perhaps these are typical odds and have nothing to do with his treatment of them.

This reminds me of a statistical point that almost came up in this topic. If the Branch in Australia reported that there were 1006 perpetrators going back in the records as far as 1950, and only 1,800 reported victims, then I hoped this might reflect something good about the judicial system, or the moral reminders, and daily spiritual food that all of us receive as Witnesses. The reason I say that is that the average abuser makes regular repeated attempts to find victims, and often finds many of additional victims, many of whom will never report the abuse. Some will report it only after learning that the abuser has additional victims -- because their own story is corroborated, because they are helping to corroborate another victim they can sympathize with, and because they realize that they could have helped others had they tried to report it earlier.

I know that the claim of a report of 5,000 victims or even 5,000 cases of abuse is not supported in the ARC statistics. But we have learned that abusers can victimize multiple (sometimes dozens) of persons in a lifetime, and can victimize one person multiple times (sometimes dozens of times per person). So I don't really doubt that the 1,006 alleged abusers probably could represent at least 5,000 victims, and I don't really doubt that the 1800 alleged victims could represent at least 5,000 instances of abuse. But here is also where I think this problem is more limited in the congregational setting, compared to how it would be in many other settings. I include the way Witnesses (should) learn to handle themselves at school as part of the "congregational" setting. I believe our own congregational setting already fares better, and will continue to improve, especially after appropriate training by elders, appropriate awareness of the issue by children, and appropriate protection and watchfulness by parents. I believe that the congregational setting, and the usual congregational activities, and social activities provide a safety measure rather than a "pedophile paradise" as I have heard an ex-JWs call it. We don't have the priest/altarboy situations in the congregation. We don't have only single elders and ms. We don't have children-only activities where older brothers spend hours at a time alone with children. We have a lot of watchful (some would say judgmental) brothers and sisters watching each other even a bit too close for comfort. We have constant moral and spiritual reminders. We are voluntarily putting ourselves in an environment that condemns such sins and crimes. The few problems remaining in our process are being counterbalanced by positive counsel and, recently at least, continually improving processes.

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As I stated before on this thread ... but it has been confirmed by REAL numbers (.02% thesis of JW Insider ...)

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

12/67,418= 0.02%

Notice that this is the same as the general population of Australia noted above, not 10 times better.

  • 5,559 / 23,968,973 = 0.0002
  • 12 / 67,418 = 0.0002

MY MAIN concern is the institutionalized tyranny of silence where Brothers and Sisters are disfellowshipped, and THREATENED with disfellowshipping,  to keep the child abuse covered up.

The family is ALREADY traumatized ... then the victim is threatened  and/or disfellowshipped, and this travesty is compounded by the victims family being held hostage in "Coventry" ... and if this combined trauma overwhelms them ... they have been thrown away ... forever.

THIS is why we have a 77% loss rate of those who leave.

I have PERSONALLY seen much too much of THIS  modus operandi .... year after year after year after year ... and been threatened myself about 13 times in the past 55 years.

It USED to shock me, and hurt my feelings and discourage me like carrying heavy, heavy bags of rocks ... but I got used to it as a survival mechanism.

You may have noticed that I am not exactly "Brother Watchtower".

The JW "spiritual paradise" operates under the same style as the old Soviet Union's "Worker's Paradise", where the main newspaper PRAVDA ... which when translated means "TRUTH",  was nothing but a self-aggrandizing puff piece for the Communist Party.

Think I am hyperbolic?

Go to the JW.ORG Web Site, and under "Legal", see how much of all the legal things we have discussed here show up as honest reporting.

Last time I checked, it was ZERO.

The Brotherhood is DELIBERATELY being kept in the dark, as an institutionalized policy, pretending the "Elephant In The Room" is not really here.

 

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4 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

Is it t up to your, Anna’s, JTR or many others here, satisfaction? NO! Because you people expect, an above and beyond, approach that doesn’t have support in this system of things by anyone that doesn’t understand the realities and condition in which they live in.

You are wrong in your assumption. I don't think any of us had/has unrealistic expectations. JW insider described the problem that existed in the past quite accurately:

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Part of it is the "invisibility" of children. They were so much less important to the discussion in prior years, especially - not just among Witnesses. Elders were almost by definition patriarchal and patronizing to children. Children's claims of abuse were always considered serious, but due mostly to the extent that it was an older baptized person who was now in trouble for acting on their sinful thoughts. But it was rarely ever considered how dangerous this was to children through their later life. This is the main reason it is now considered a crime on par with rape. 

 

But still, that doesn't mean it was OK does it?

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19 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Go to the JW.ORG Web Site, and under "Legal", see how much of all the legal things we have discussed here show up as honest reporting.

Just curious, how would you, as JTR, report this on jw.org? I mean give an example of what you would actually say (no puns or jokes, seriously)

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5 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

A pastor has a duty to hold in confidence any information obtained during a counseling session. A pastor who violates this trust might be on the losing end of a suit for an invasion of privacy or defamation.[7]"

Legally, this is quite understandable, and is true .....but there is a "rest of the story", and it has in the case of the WTB&TS already been sporadically adjudicated to reflect the uniqueness of the way we do things, and the rational goes something like this:

A pastor has a duty to hold in confidence any information obtained during a counseling session. A pastor who violates this trust might be on the losing end of a suit for an invasion of privacy or defamation - but if he tells ONE OTHER PERSON, that confidentiality is not then protected by law ... as the clergyman HIMSELF violated it.

Like the old Italian saying ... "Two can keep a secret ... if one of them is dead !"

In the case of the Society, there are THREE judges that run a Judicial Committee, and then a synopsis is made including names, dates, and offenses (real or imagined) and the specific details and investigations, and results are discussed with the Society's legal department by telephone.

In letters back and forth to the Branch Offices, with explanations, clarifications, and policy directives in that particular case.  THEN forms are filled out with the pertinent details ... the accused and/or convicted "sinner", (which may include blatant criminal activity), and that is sent to the Branch office.

If appeals committees are formed that is ANOTHER three people on a different Judicial Committee, and of course the Circuit Overseer who sometimes has to bring in others from other congregations.

Including mail routers at Bethel, secretaries, and other legal staff, there might be 20 people that have intimate details of whatever was confessed ... or not confessed, but adjudicated with prejudice.

So you can see that as long as only ONE "clergyman", and only ONE person is the "penitent" ... yes that conversation and possible confession is protected by law, pretty much everywhere in the English speaking world, but for the reasons stated, those laws, however stated and formulated ... DO NOT APPLY TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES.

Not one in a thousand lay people understand this (a WAG), and perhaps not one in a hundred lawyers, and perhaps not one in ten Judges.   It is arcane information that is not in the experience of most, about JW "Groupthink".

This does not include Elders wives who through "pillow talk" want to know EVERYTHING that goes on ... and do  find out, or a herd or gaggle of  Elders themselves gossiping around steaks on a grill, and lots of beer.

You might as well post a transcript in the Kingdom Hall Newsletter, if we had one.

...except no recordings, stenographers, or observers,  or representation is/are permitted, so that would be impossible, as in any Star Chamber proceedings.

 

 

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19 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It is far from a simple proportion based upon straightforward facts. It is a terribly sloppy calculation. You should look at it again.

Okay. I did and I was wrong.

It was me who first put the quotes around "study" thus acknowleging it was not really a study, but simply an indicator, a fact, that could be built upon. Maybe it was wrong of me to do that, but we are a culture that loves to say it acts upon studies, and I saw no reason not to give it that status for purposes of discussion.

I also said when I introduced the "study" into this thread that it "seemingly shows" a child is ten times safer in the JW environment. I dropped that qualifier in later reiterations because I was dealing with someone who seemingly accepted the 10 times better as fact and yet it made no difference to him. I took this as an indication that he had lost his senses and I repeated the "10 times better" "fact" thinking that it would eventually penetrate, but it never did. I think a million times better would not have cut it. If there was even a speck of dirt, it justified to him a flamethrower.

 

19 hours ago, JW Insider said:

But notice that these are multiple notifications

This is the fact that was missed. Updating a year as you have done, the 355,925 notifications stem from just 225,487 children, and so it is the latter number that should be used in the calculation. (these figures are from just under the heading: "How many notifications are made to child protection services in Australia each year?" and they appear before the charts you selected from.

The pie chart further down shows that, for whatever reason, the percentage of abuse cases that is sexual is no longer 13%, but 12% 

Thus 12% of 225,487 eqauls 27,058 notifications of child sexual abuse - out of a total Australian population of 24, 000,000.

The figures to be used for comparative purposes are: 

Greater Australia:  27,058   /   24,000,000   -  which represents 11.27%

vs

Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia:  12   /   67,418   -   which represents 1.78%

Thus, the Witness organization does not prevent child sexual abuse at a rate 10 times greater than all Australia. It prevents it at a rate of 6.3 times greater than all Australia.

You have lost me in some of your calculations, but it appears that you have qualified those notifications from all-Australia, but not the ones from the Witnesses. Some of their notifications turn out to be unsubstantiated, but you seem to assume that every one of ours are. I see no reason for that assumption. You can only compare like to like, not their 'processed' notifications to our 'unprocessed' ones.

For that matter, there is no guarantee that each of our notifications stems from a different child. They don't in all-Australia. Maybe not with us as well.  If even two of them stemmed from the same child, that would skew the numbers hugely in our favor. 

Is it valid to relate that, per reported figures, children would appear to be 6.3 times safer in a Witness environment? Or should they be left to suppose that it is even-steven, or even worse, for fear they may otherwise get complacent about fixing what remains?

I will give you an experience and admittedly, I am going borderline hysterics myself, like many who have contributed to this topic. Just recently a childhood friend of my son died. He left the truth as a teenager. He subsequently developed heavy addiction problems. But for the last three months he had been clean and was once again attending meetings. His mother went to pick him up on the night of the Memorial - last night. He had apparantly relapsed and overdosed. He was dead.

Now, I know very well that not everyone who leaves the truth developes addiction problems. And I also know that not everyone who recovers does so by becoming a Jehovah's Witness. But I  know too that opioid addiction has a 90% recidism rate. So it would have been a very fine thing, even a lifeline, had he continued coming to meetings where he could have gathered strength. And had he done that, I would not be thrilled at someone meeting him at the door and saying: "You know, we have child sexual abuse here just as much as where you come from. it might even be worse."

No. I want them to say 'Because we make a real effort to resist child sexual abuse and have good governance to that effect, we kick it 6.3 times better than the world. And we kick opioid abuse 20 times better. And whatever wretched problem you have encountered, we kick that multiple times better as well. I guarantee that he would not have said: "Yeah, but you're not perfect, are you?"

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

You haven’t given the Watchtower any CREDIT for doing the best as humanly possible to address those human conditions.

Exactly. Once again, Allen earns his keep.

Does he interfere, obscurate, divert? Well, before concluding that, take into account the 'scholarly' contributions of JTR or Witness and you will see he yet ranks pretty high.

It infuriates me - the constant insinuation that the eight righteous men aren't really righteous and, to the extent they are not, it is the long arm of the law that will straighten them out and not their own fear of God.

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TTH:

From outward appearances ... which is the only thing we at the "bottom" have to go on ... the GB does not control the Society anyway .... the Lawyers, Accountants and Investment counselors do.

Justice must be tempered with mercy for blind pawns ...

John 9:41.

In fact ... the whole 9th Chapter of John addresses this problem, in its entirety.

 

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7 hours ago, Anna said:
8 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Go to the JW.ORG Web Site, and under "Legal", see how much of all the legal things we have discussed here show up as honest reporting.

Just curious, how would you, as JTR, report this on jw.org? I mean give an example of what you would actually say (no puns or jokes, seriously)

I would first develop a "Style Book" such as any major news reporting organization has to guide reporters how to write articles.

In the 7th Grade I learned that news should be reported as "Who, what, when, where, and how much ... and sometimes Why?"

And it has to be first of all TRUE, then objective, and updated as developments happen.

The News organizations today have almost universally devolved from that standard.

Our organization pretends that non self-aggrandizing JW legal news does not exist.

 

 

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