Rule-bound church kept child abuse secret

SBS
July 26, 2015

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/07/27/rule-bound-church-kept-child-abuse-secret

Elders in the Jehovah's Witnesses forced a girl to confront her father who was abusing her, and who blamed her for seducing him.

The elders were friends of her father who was a highly regarded member of the church, which likes to keep its members isolated from the rest of society, a royal commission has been told.

Counsel for the commission Angus Stewart, SC, said a witness known as BCG would give evidence that her father's sexual abuse did not appear to qualify as "wrongdoing" in the eyes of the Church.

In his opening statement to a hearing into child sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mr Stewart said of the 1006 alleged perpetrators of child abuse identified by the Jehovah's Witnesses since 1950, not one was reported to authorities.

The church is preoccupied with sin and sinning, and has a patriarchal structure where a man is head of the family and elders, all men, shepherd the congregation, Mr Stewart said.