Monique was nine years old when he started abusing her. He began by spying on her as she undressed; then he started visiting her room at night and touching her private parts. When she resisted him, he was furious. Once he even attacked her with a hammer and threw her down a flight of stairs. "No one would believe me," Monique recalls—not even her mother. The abuser was Monique's stepfather.
Thus begins the web page article on the Official website of The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, at this address. http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1993/10/8a/article_03.htm
Does the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society really care about the welfare of children? Or are they more concerned about the image presented by their very large, very lawyerly Corporation? ...And of course, the money that it is capable of generating.
From the Watchtower, by the above link, we find a discussion about child molestation and the Watchtower’s advice concerning the way it encourages solution and handling.
The page begins with the opening quotation above in a box.
It is an incredible blunder on the part of the Watchtower for them to have this page on their site, because it actually supports the position of Silent Lambs. How fitting that the Watchtower herself should highlight the pain caused by their policy on reporting this evil.
While child molestation is wrong and grieves us, the act itself described here is not the worst thing read in this account. The most objectionable thing is the travesty, that after it occurred, NOBODY would believe the victim!
It is a terrible thing that children are molested. It’s a difficult world we live in that finds us confronting this evil. But the world also has many other evils. Murder. We hear about it everyday, and sometimes its children, perhaps killed in a drive by shooting. This just recently happened in Detroit Michigan, where an eight-year-old girl died in her bed after a bullet pierced her home and killed her in her sleep.
But there is a deterrent to murder and a way to establish that it has occurred. What about child molestation? There needs to be a deterrent. The deterrent comes when there is a way to establish that it has occurred and a subsequent punishment for the criminal who committed this crime.
The poor girl described in the account at top, was most likely a Jehovah’s Witness. Her mother undoubtedly was also one, because she refused to believe her. And her molester was almost certainly a JW because he could not have avoided punishment so easily without the aid of Watchtower policy to shield him from the Law.
How is it that "No one would believe me," when “Monique” called for help?
If this occurred in a “worldly” home (other than Jehovah’s Witness) then almost certainly somebody would have listened. But, in a JW home, the Watchtower’s stated and applied policy is that there “MUST BE TWO WITNESSES”, or else, as far as the Watchtower’s legal department is concerned, the event NEVER HAPPENED.
Yes, the travesty outlined in the Watchtower’s story is NOT the molestation in itself, but rather the damage done by the applied LEGALISM of the Watchtower Society Inc. in keeping the victim silent!
If you go on to read the rest of what the Watchtower’s article offers, then you will note that the WTS offers NO ACTUAL HELP for the molestation victim, and only more pain on top of the original suffering, caused by Watchtower and their insane approach to this crime.
What deterrent does the Watchtower offer? Below is another quote from the same web page.
“Similarly the Christian congregation today enforces strong laws against all forms of sexual abuse. Anyone who sexually abuses a child risks being disfellowshipped, put out of the congregation.”Yes, “strong laws”,that are not much more than a “risk” of a slap on the wrist, temporarily being “put out of the congregation”. No guarantee even, just a risk, and as we know only a temporary risk. No mention of the LAW of the land. No mention of the penalty incurred when it is reported to the authorities, because it wouldn't be. Nobody would believe “Monique”, most especially Watchtower trained Jehovah's Witness elders!
Strong laws indeed.
Regarding prevention, the Watchtower directs its attention, NOT at the offender, but rather at the victim, an innocent child. They rant on…
“Inculcating these laws means more than occasionally lecturing your children. It involves a regular give-and-take discussion. From time to time, both mother and father should reaffirm God's laws on incest and the loving reasons for these laws.”Here they affirm only the victim’s role. “Buyer beware” is the clause of choice. The WTS’s legal department seems involved in writing their “new light” in these areas. It’s the “children” who need to be 'lectured to', …and beyond.
Yes, according to the Watchtower legal department, “Monique” in the above Watchtower account needed “a regular give-and-take discussion”, so that when her “stepfather” “started visiting her room at night and touching her private parts", she would know what to do. Tell a JW elder of course, who would tell her she is not credible since she does not have two witnesses.
Oh, but wait, the account says…[I] “When she resisted him, he was furious. Once he even attacked her with a hammer and threw her down a flight of stairs.”
It seems that “Monique” didn’t know that being[I] “attacked… with a hammer” was wrong. She should have been lectured to. She should have spoken up.I am sure that after some attention is drawn to this web page by means of discussions like this, it will be removed or altered by Watchtower since, as David Semonian pointed out in his published words to WIRED, the Watchtower frequently comes to the "table of demons",(to quote the WTS view) to see what’s on the menu. Just a taste from time to time.
WIRED :
“But David Semonian, spokesman for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, admitted the group sometimes looks at the website "when necessary." He also said it attempts to "readjust (the) thinking" of those who post material critical of the religion on the Web.”Such blatant hypocrisy! May God have mercy on their stinking souls.
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