Dutch Branch office reaction to the motion accepted by the Parliament

[Jack Ryan]

Dagblad van het Noorden

Today a large article was published in a Dutch newspaper 'Dagblad van het Noorden'. It is about Frank Huiting, the Reclaimed Voices Foundation and the adopted motion in Parliament. The Branch office has given a reaction:

According to the organisation of Jehovah's Witnesses, an investigation desired by the entire Parliament into sexual abuse within the church, is disproportionate. "The Reclaimed Voices Foundation says that this is a structural problem within our Church. We do not identify with this at all," says spokesman Michel van Hilten. According to him, the scale of the problem is not larger than elsewhere in society.

They therefore refuse to cooperate in such an investigation. "Have you read that motion? The first three paragraphs are rattling assumptions. We are certainly not going to cooperate on the basis of assumptions. There are all kinds of stories about us, that we have a closed structure and that there are many cases of child abuse. But we have a handful of incidents and reports of abuse each year. Reclaimed Voices can only arrive with 301 cases if those issues have been taken out of context, through double counting or if other types of issues are counted as abuse.

Jehovah's Witnesses refuse contact with Reclaimed Voices. "No, we are not going to go along with that. They have hired a lawyer, they work through the media, and the phase of constructive consultation has long since ended.

The Church sees no reason for internal research either: "We have seriously considered it, though. We are not an apathetic organisation, without any self-reflection. We have set up a very sound protocol for this. Our protocol is a compilation of our efforts to protect children within our community. Because our protocol has been posted on our website, everyone now has access to our working methods. Once again, there are many calls, without any knowledge of the facts. Such an investigation is shooting with a cannon on a mosquito."

source in Dutch: Dagblad van het Noorden