It's easy enough to say that parents of molested kids should go to the police. But what if a child speaks to the elders about being abused by their own parent(s)? Doesn't that child deserve a responsible adult to advocate for them? Don't the elders, in a case like that, have a fiduciary duty to those kids who go to them for help? The primary goal should be the protection of the child from further harm, not whether there are grounds for investigation by a judicial committee. If that means that the elder(s) who have received such a disclosure from a child have to follow through with a report to police, so be it.
NEED HELP: What's wrong with CURRENT Borg policy on molestation?
by Open mind 42 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
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beginnersmind
Scully i agree 100% with what you say. I was coming from the perspective of a parent whose child was abused by someone in the congregation. Like you say if the parent is the abuser it changes that prespective and if a child reports it to the elders they should do all they can for the protection of the child and they should report it. The difficulty would be to know if the child is lieing or not which is not out of the realms of possibility and the hurt that would cause for the parents. Although I dont think thats for the elders to decide it shows that whatever policy there is innocents will be hurt wether its the child who has been abused or the one falsely accused.
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Open mind
Thanks again to everyone & and an UPDATE:
Had a good long conversation with my wife about ......... A P O S T A T E S .... over the weekend and this thread was the camel's nose I used to poke into her dub-think tent. I'll post the details in Private Discussion.
All your posts were really helpful to me in feeling "comfortable" with the topic. (That sounds sick doesn't it? Oh well, you know what I mean)
Open Mind