Commission to Probe Abuse of Children in Jehovah’s Witnesses

By Dan Box
The Australian
June 23, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/commission-to-probe-abuse-of-children-in-jehovahs-witnesses/story-fngburq5-1227410103530&memtype=anonymous

The child abuse royal commission will investigate the mistreatment of children within the Jehovah’s Witnesses church, with a public hearing into the Christian denomination to be held in Sydney next month.

The church, which has about 89,000 followers in Australia, is the latest in a series of religious organisations called before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The inquiry, which is expected to hear from a number of victims, will also hear evidence about how the church and its associated company, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd, responded to abuse in the past.

A previous Victorian state inquiry into child abuse heard that church leaders who heard allegations of abuse had been instructed to contact the organisation’s lawyers to check their obligations under state law, before going to police.

Asked whether church leaders would report allegations of child abuse to police, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society director Terrence O’Brien told the Victorian inquiry “that is within the decision-making of the victim, not the minister”.