Lost Generation and Anony Mous explained the Borg procedure accurately.
It should be criminal but in many states it is allowed.
In general, what is the ethically correct response if a minor tells you someone is molesting him/her?
by InterestedOne 84 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
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james_woods
I do believe that there was a time when Jehovah's Witnesses in the local congregation would investigate the circumstances surrounding the report, and then, based on the results of their investigation, would report (i.e., child abuse, spousal abuse, extortion, other criminal acts that might be taking place) to the authorities, but those days have ended. I want to add here though that this distinction you make is ridiculous and isn't true. It may have been true in the cases that you have personally observed, but unless you have personal knowledge of such cases, they are unverified accounts that may or may not have involved an unbaptized child, but whether the child involved in child abuse matters may be that of one of Jehovah's Witnesses or the child of a non-Witnesses is incredible, pure fiction on your part.
As Murray Smith said above - "Lord Have Mercy". What the hell difference does it make if the child is baptized or not? Idiocy. Typical JW idiocy.
And as I said simply in the beginning -
CHILD
PROTECTIVE
SERVICES
plus, in an emergency situation - the POLICE.
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Mad Sweeney
Why does anybody bother responding to Egg at all? It's just trolling you.
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james_woods
Why does anybody bother responding to Egg at all? It's just trolling you.
Fact, and I should know better. But, just for the record I guess...
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sir82
Like I said above, the elders are going to ask the family of the alleged victim if they feel comfortable about reporting the alleged abuse themselves, and if they would prefer not to do so, then the elders will do so, period.
As a current elder, I just want to say you are completely and utterly making this up.
THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS.
Just wanted to let lurkers know that our friend here is lying.
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dgp
Bookmarked.
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djeggnog
@Murray Smith:
You must know by now that a good many of the posters here, like myself, have spent 20,30,40 years or more in this Organisation all over the world. Yet you come on here with your sanctimonious dissertations to tell us all "how it is"
I have not once said what has been the experience of anyone here in connection with child molestation (child abuse) cases was fiction or wasn't 'how it was' in their local congregation, but what I have said is how things are and have been in other congregations where such cases has emerged.
I have been involved in sexual impropriety toward minors in various capacities involving communications from branch offices and Brooklyn, and none have ever resembled the steps taken in your post. More than half involved MS's or Elders. In the great majority of cases parents were intimidated into not advising the authorities "for the sake of God's name".
What is this supposed to mean? You would seem to be suggesting that Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada (from where @Lady Lee hails), in the US (from where I hail), in Great Britain or in other parts of the world as well are experiencing such problems in epidemic proportions when nothing could be further from the truth. Listening to you and others here sounds as if the discussion centers around the pedophile scandals involving Roman Catholic priests, but if problems of such massive proportionality that "you guys" are attributing to Jehovah's Witnesses, past and present, really did exist among the 7,313,173 spread across the 105,298 congregations around the world, there is no question in my mind that with the new media helping to put such stories foremost, there would be much, much more being reported about Jehovah's Witnesses involved in such scandals.
What I'm reading here in this post is pure exaggeration based on an anti-Jehovah's Witnesses bias, where people are throwing whatever they can at Jehovah's Witnesses, hoping that some of what they are throwing at us might even stick, based on a few dated reports that are still circulating about real cases, many of which have already been disposed of by the authorities.
This organisation cares more about it's reputation, than destroying the lives of a few thousand children and their families, and that is a fact.
Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned about any reproach being heaped upon God's name, and rightly so, since even during Jesus' time and Paul's time here on earth, people were reproaching Jehovah's name by their conduct and by the things that they were teaching and saying, so there is no question that we would be concerned about how such reports might negatively impact the work that Jehovah's Witnesses are doing in the world.
You make it sound as if you believe Jehovah's Witnesses should fold up their tents and disappear from the face of the earth that is our inheritance as we will be the nucleus of the new earth, but we aren't going anywhere despite what things you and others here and elsewhere say about us, for when it is discovered that a pedophile has slipped into a school as a teacher, no one tears down the school despite what those carrying picket signs at the school might be advocating, but the legal, medical and government authorities will typically be brought in to deal with the pedophile and those kids that begin to report that they were victims of the teacher.
True, we do care about our reputation and, more than this, we care about God's name -- Jehovah is our God! -- but our reputation as Jehovah's Witnesses is tied to the lives of not just thousands, but millions of families in the world that are, all of them, desirous of doing God's will, for our prime endeavor is to do God's will, and that is a fact.
@Glander:
The elders actually scolded me for going to the police.
You should not have been "scolded" for reporting the possibility that sexual abuse might be taking place once you have obtained knowledge of such. This thread is not about whether Jehovah's Witnesses have a duty to report such matters to the authorities, but about what one's ethical obligations are upon learning about a child's being sexually molested, and, in all such cases, one discharges his or her ethical responsibility as a citizen IMO when he or she reports anything he or she observes that seems strange, odd or unusual taking place in their environs, or comes to hear about man's inhumanity to man, whether it be related to child abuse, spousal abuse, physical abuse, including altercations between kids at school, or adults or children that seem to be living in overcrowded conditions or squalor and are hardly seen in public where slavery of some kind or diseases may become known as the result of such reports.
@Lady Lee wrote:
Elders are to call Bethel first to find out if they should report the abuse accusation. Bethel legal will then let them know if they should report. In the US it seems to depend on what state this happens in.
@djeggnog wrote:
And you know this how?
@Lady Lee wrote:
We know from many experiences that if the accused is not a Witness or associated with the Witnesses they will be told to report. But if the accused is a JW they will most likely not tell them to report.
@djeggnog wrote:
I do believe that there was a time when Jehovah's Witnesses in the local congregation would investigate the circumstances surrounding the report, and then, based on the results of their investigation, would report (i.e., child abuse, spousal abuse, extortion, other criminal acts that might be taking place) to the authorities, but those days have ended. I want to add here though that this distinction you make is ridiculous and isn't true. It may have been true in the cases that you have personally observed, but unless you have personal knowledge of such cases, they are unverified accounts that may or may not have involved an unbaptized child, but whether the child involved in child abuse matters may be that of one of Jehovah's Witnesses or the child of a non-Witnesses is incredible, pure fiction on your part.
@james_woods wrote:
As Murray Smith said above - "Lord Have Mercy". What the hell difference does it make if the child is baptized or not?
I don't believe you can recall reading anything at all in this thread to the effect that I thought it made a difference whether a child was baptized. In her post, it was @Lady Lee that sought to distinguish between baptized and unbaptized children as if such mattered where child molestation occurs. My point to her was, and to you is, that it doesn't matter. Maybe you could take a remedial class in reading comprehension so that you might learn that reading doesn't involve the recitation of words, but comprehending the meaning of them, which will save you from taking positions that undermine your fake angst.
@djeggnog wrote:
Like I said above, the elders are going to ask the family of the alleged victim if they feel comfortable about reporting the alleged abuse themselves, and if they would prefer not to do so, then the elders will do so, period. The kinds of things with which we deal in the local congregation [have] to do with the spirituality of the parties involved, so no matter what the superior authorities might require the accused and his or her victims to do, we are going to investigate the facts of the report made, and if at least two witnesses confirm the report, the matter is established in our minds, regardless of what police and judges do. If we learn that the alleged abuse of a child in this case was reported by another child in a different case, then where, in both cases, the same allegations involving sexual abuse are made against the same individual, but by different children, this, too, will establish the matter.
@sir82 wrote:
As a current elder, I just want to say you are completely and utterly making this up.
THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS.
I'm saying what ought to happen and you are here telling me what in your opinion doesn't happen in connection with child molestation cases. But let's say, in connection with this accusation of yours, that I'm just lying here.
What would you say is the downside of my doing that?
If anything that I've said here is not true, how would my words negatively impact the problem? What I'm getting at here, if you even bother to respond to this question -- in view of your being someone admittedly disloyal to God's organization, someone serving as an elder while deceiving folks into believing you to be someone that extols Jehovah for all of the things He has done for you and me and them in keeping us all safe from many of the things that have and are afflicting other people in this world that have not yet come to know Jehovah -- is what your motives are for joining this thread and saying that I'm "completely and utterly" making thing up here. Someone that was loyal wrote: "What is looked for in stewards is for a man to be found faithful." (1 Corinthians 4:2)
Just wanted to let lurkers know that our friend here is lying.
Then the onus would be on you to prove that I'm lying, would it not? I have no motive to lie, but with you being a pretentious elder that doesn't want your disloyalty to be discovered for fear that this might result in your becoming isolated from family members once your disloyalty becomes known do have a very strong motive to lie. In your next post, I anticipate that you will either be providing the requested proof or you will pretend that you are posting or are going to be posting proof of this allegation you make here, but whatever it is you should decide to do, @sir82 -- if anything at all! -- l'll be looking forward to reading your next post, and so will the lurkers.
@djeggnog
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cantleave
Eggnog = you are showing your stupidity again.
Many of us were elders, we now how this dispicable organisation works.
You know nothing.
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james_woods
djeggnog is off topic.
The topic was - what is the correct response if a minor tells you someone is molesting (him, her).
It was not about self-defense over being a shameless JW apologist.