I regard the information below as true until proven false because of corresponding with a young man in S. Africa for a few years whose story I posted on my website: http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/stories/caleb.html, "Freedom From An Unsafe Haven, by Caleb." Although some of the accounts of abuse of children in S. Africa in the story below are older, Calab wrote me details of abusive treatment meted out to young people in his area that he chose not to put in his story for fear he could be identified. Calab in now in University in another part of Africa and very happy after breaking the chains that engulfed his mind.
Barbara
SHOCKING!!! By Llewelyn du Toil of Pretoria, South Africa http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=264961873574546&id=179830665449008
FALSEHOOD’S FLAME: A STUDY OF CHILD NEGLECT AND ABUSE AMONGST JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES IN SOUTH AFRICA, STRETCHING BACK OVER A PERIOD OF SOME THIRTY YEARS
These are the Jehovah’s Witnesses in South Africa and this is their REAL and UGLY TRUTH: Read here how their children are used and abused, molested and even raped, often beaten and neglected, forced to go without meals and to sometimes sleep outdoors, regularly worked like slaves and impoverished, all while their parents sit “haughty” in the front pews during church meetings and this organization’s elders look the other way, or rather take their abusive parent’s side, when children bring these transgressions to light!
Labour: Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) are regularly used and abused to do local house chores, home maintenance and garden work without proper remuneration or pocket money. This includes cleaning their local ‘Kingdom-Hall’ Church buildings, which happens around once a month for each internal bible-study group, depending on the size of the congregation. Children of all ages are also used for “slave labour” in big JW’s church-building projects (e.g. Eikenhof Circuit Assembly Hall south of Johannesburg City and the Head-office of JW’s, S.A., at Roodekrans Bethel Home, Krugersdorp, Johannesburg, as well as their new Mega Circuit Assembly Point in the Suburb of Midrand, halfway between the Cities of Pretoria and Johannesburg. Here children have been working over several years, without ANY remuneration except for a meal or two, and without proper safety gear around new buildings during the various stages of their erection and on building-sites under construction. This is in line with the organisation’s motto of keeping costs down by using “volunteer” workers, while creating a general feeling of unity via symbiosis. While the author does not imply that children should be exempted from any and all chores and even some housekeeping duties, the examples given here, observed over several years and also experienced by himself when still a child at school, are tantamount to ‘slave labour’ and ‘work camps’. Laws concerning child labour under the previous Regime, the National Party, were very lax and apparently exploited by this Organisation to achieve massive construction projects at the minimum of expenses…
Incest, rape and molestation: Incidents of these three despicable acts from experiences in Southern Africa, as well as examples popping up from other parts of the world, appear to be much more prevalent amongst Jehovah’s Witnesses than once thought. The sad fact about these atrocities is that they are usually hidden for many years, before coming to light and the mothers of these abused children are ALWAYS the last to know about it. In single cases where they might become aware of it early on, the wives of these paedophiles (being the good Christian mothers they’re supposed to be) usually keep it quiet, preferring to resolve such issues inside their marriages or through the local congregational church structures. The other sad, but inexcusable fact, is that elders MORE OFTEN THAN NOT cover up these incidents quickly before it gets out in the open and puts the Organisation or its local Congregation to shame! For example, when a schoolgirl reported her stepfather’s paedophilistic nature, his fondling of her and her sisters, and his openly masturbating acts to local elders of the Springs Central Congregation, (Jhb, S.A.) they retaliated by calling her a rebel who “drew him out” (by sitting open-legged in front of him)! Furthermore, they threatened her with disfellowshipment (ex-communication) from that congregation, effectively gagging her in the process and burying the whole case, instead of acting against the transgressor! This threat, from a trio of weakling, yellow-bellied “Elders”, was not only unnecessary but downright illegal too, since she was only a 17 or 18 year old high school pupil and not even a baptised member of Jehovah’s Witnesses at that time! Yes, such is the justice in this Organisation, who claims to be the ONLY true religion on earth, hence their name for their faith, namely the “Truth”! This oversight on the elders’ part to take him to task, resulted in him continuing with his evil ways, eventually one day running around naked in a park in the town of Springs, ONLY THEN being disfellowshipped for his transgressions, but not after he has ruined his three stepdaughters’ lives! He is now desperately trying to get back to the “Truth” of Jehovah’s Witnesses and will in all probability ruin another family in future, since paedophiles are very, very seldomly rehabilitated! (A known fact amongst psychiatrists and physicians in the medical fraternity)
Physical and mental abuse and violence: Children of JW’s in S.A. are regularly beaten over transgressions and/or violently forced into submission when they beg to differ from a parent or step-parent. This was especially the case in the seventies and eighties, when corporal punishment of children was still allowed in South Africa. One classical example here is that of a seventeen year old boy who suffered terrible mental and physical abuse under his stepfather, a “staunch and exemplary” Jehovah’s Witness (or so everybody thought). The boy frequently had to go to school or church meetings with a blue eye and bruises, while congregational elders did NOTHING about this or even enquired as to the nature of his injuries… Many times he had to forfeit a meal when his stepfather found a reason (mostly negligibly small) to discipline him and he had to sleep outdoors on at least one known occasion! His step dad also forced him to search for part-time employment for countless hours on the streets when he was still under age, a very difficult thing for him to do, then took away the money he earned that way! Thankfully, one specific elder in the local congregation did something about this matter, when he got to hear about the case and he got his money back without retaliation! The stepfather, a six-foot, 200 pound man, was apparently feared by most church members because of his size and stature and not often ridiculed or easily questioned by fellow worshippers of that congregation. He painted himself as the picture of a perfect Jehovah’s Witness, a good provider and loving, caring father. But behind closed doors and out of sight of fellow worshippers, he created a hell-home for his stepchildren. Impoverished by his stingy nature, they were forced to wear second-hand clothes and hand-me-downs, to live in a shabby house a stone’s-throw away from their schools and the local congregation, and to live a generally stunted lifestyle, while he freely squandered money on himself and his hobbies!
Another typical form of abuse children are subjected to, is isolation from “worldly” (non-Jehovah’s Witnesses) influences, friends, peers and especially their own family members. This includes a very limited amount of TV-viewing and also censorship of their correspondence with friends and family. They are VERY often denied access to their biological parents when these are not JW-members or especially in cases where a biological father or mother has been disfellowshipped for some reason. This is supposedly to “protect” them from bad influences coming from these non-believers and the possibility of them being lead astray from the path of the “Truth”, (although there are more than enough of these “bad” influences at the “wordly” schools they have to attend)! So bad are these cases, fully justified of course by scriptural texts and preaching lessons from elders, that many children grow up COMPLETELY alien to their real mother or father and can only look them up and get to know them better, once they leave home to study further or find employment elsewhere! Children of JW’s are encouraged to the point of super-saturation, to proclaim their gospel on the streets and to even partake in congregational preaches and talks from podiums (from a very young age), and are praised and paraded when doing so, but elders fall strangely silent when these same youngsters report misbehaviour and molestation onto themselves! Children of normal JW-members are even strongly discouraged to attend universities, supposedly to “protect” them from bad influences coming from these places, by the VERY same elders or elder’s children who are studying or have studied at these tertiary institutions!!! (The author was an actual witness to this fact, when he attended a talk years ago by an elders’ son on this very subject!) The logic behind such reasoning baffles the mind, until you consider the possibility that elder’s might actually FEAR a ‘clever and informed’ flock that can more-easily see through their deceit and lies, and therefore make better decisions for themselves, of course!
These are only a few examples of what is happening in congregations throughout South Africa. Please read other blogs, sites and pages (see links below) for more horror stories from S.A. as well as from other parts of the world. Spread the word about this hushed-up subject in a world that still prefers to cover atrocities against it’s defenseless ones, and NEVER, NEVER let what happened to you or one of your family members, EVER be repeated upon ANY of your children or someone else’s child, where you could have prevented it!
Thank you and God’s blessings upon all of you who attempt to bring light to a dark and dreary world and justice to those from whom it was snatched in ONE single judgement, by wolves masquerading in sheep’s clothing…
Interesting sites and pages on these topics:
Internet: www.jwnews.net
Facebook: Disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witnesses support
Facebook: Natalie asks you
Facebook: A happy life AFTER our Jehovah’s Witness experiences
Facebook: The REAL truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses
Facebook: Dear Watctower Bible and Tract Society
Facebook: Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and Friends