Panorama - "Suffer the little children'

[Jack Ryan]

The BBC television show Panorama had an episode in 2002 that featured the pedophilia problems within the Jehovah's Witness religion. They interviewed molestation survivors that went to the JW elders for help, only to be told that they did not have the required "two witnesses" that the religion demands and so were told not to call the police but to leave it "in Jehovah's hands".

They travel to America and speak to then governing body leader Ted Jaracz, who coldly tells them that the Witnesses do not "go beyond the things that are written", a quote from Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:6.

They learn that the Watchtower Organization has a secret database with over 23,000 entries containing both accused and convicted pedophiles associated with Jehovah's Witnesses.

[HollyW]

Heartbreaking.

[Ann O'Maly]

I remember seeing Dateline and Panorama when they first came out in 2002 and feeling ashamed at how the organization didn't 'treat its flock with tenderness,' sweeping these appalling crimes under the rug. The Org's priorities were all skewed. The two shows hit home all the more because members of my own family had been molested by a JW who inveigled himself into the hearts of vulnerable single/divorced JW mothers who had young daughters. The perp was eventually disfellowshipped but was reinstated a short time later after having feigned repentance. Back in business. Another area; another hapless, single JW mother in his sights.

Has the Org's attitude to child sexual abuse within its congregations really changed since then? Sadly, only negligibly until 2012 after the Candace Conti case. From that time, secular courts and public inquiries have still had to drag the Org, with its resistant heels ploughing up the ground, into making any small, tangible changes in its policies and procedures ... and it has a long way to go yet to raise its standards to meet those of 'worldly' institutions.

[HollyW]

Ann, I'd been following the Barrie's case some years back but hadn't known the outcome so I was glad to hear he's in jail.  Hard to believe that the JWs still did not believe the girls even after he had been convicted in a court of law and sentenced to prison.

The Cousins case was just as mortifying.  He confessed to the elders that he had sexually abused his oldest daughter, yet they sent him home where he proceeded to do the same to his younger daughter.  And when she went to the elders about it, they made her feel like she was lying, when they knew for certain that she wasn't.