is this acceptable punishment for kids of JWS?

by phillipau 31 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  phillipau

  hi all

  i am not a JW myself but i am wondering if this is the proper punishment for kids of JWS ?

  MY 2 neices are aged 12 &10 their step dad and mother are practising JW,S and the step dad thinks this is acepptable punishment for these girls. HE pulls down their knickers and hits these girls with a belt untill there are welts on their backsides. this is what i have been told by these two is how the JW,S punish their kids. when i confronted these 2 clowns about this . their reply was hands are for loving and belts are for belting .so now the D.O.C.S has been notified . so any one can tell me whats the agenda is in this sect .......

  thank you

  phill
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  Prisca

  NO THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!

  Glad you contacted DOCS. Whilst most JWs use some form of physical punishment, this kind is both excessive and inappropriate.

  When I was a kid, I received the belt on rare occasions, and only on the legs or bottom (clothed). The hand was the most frequent use of physical punishment.

  As I got older (10 and up) punishment was more in the form of being sent to my room or having certain things denied. eg pocket money.
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  jelly

  This is unacceptable for a couple of reasons. First beating your kids until they have welts is just wrong, very wrong. Two any adult male pulling down a 12 year old girls pants to spank her is verging on creeepy, I wonder if this guy is a perv. Highly inappropriate.

  Terry
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  UnDisfellowshipped

  I recommend contacting Bill Bowen about this by E-Mailing him at [email protected]

  Here are some Jehovah's Witnesses Quotes on this subject:

  The Watchtower March 1st 1955 Issue, Pages 135-136

  "The literal use of the rod in punishing a child may sometimes be necessary"
  ----------------------------

  The Watchtower February 1st 1956 Issue, Page 95:

  "Modern parents, in this age of delinquent youngsters, can take a lesson from the mother "teddy bear," the koala. When baby koalas "are really naughty," writes Ivan T. Sanderson in his new book Living Mammals of the World, "the mother turns them over her knee and spanks them on their bottoms for minutes on end with the flat of her hand, during which time their screams are soul-rending." "
  ----------------------------

  The Watchtower February 1st 1960 Issue, Page 80:

  "...disobedience, stubbornness and fits of anger are the ways of sin and death, and they are bound up in your heart from your very birth. It you want to live under God's kingdom rule, these devilish hereditary tendencies must be forcefully rooted out and supplanted with godly qualities, and the parental rod of correction will help to do this.

  Edited by - UnDisfellowshipped on 28 January 2003 6:8:15
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  Gopher

  Phill,

  Regarding the last post -- FYI -- Bill Bowen is a former JW elder who is a prominent child protection advocate, particularly for children of JW's who suffer sexual abuse at the hands of adult JW's. He has been in the forefront of bringing attention to this problem, resulting in major media coverage on prominent national television shows in America, England, Australia, Germany, and this week in the nation of Canada. This has set him at odds with the headquarters of the Watchtower religion, who excommunicated him last year for speaking out on the subject.

  His website is www.silentlambs.org, and in it you'll see many testimonials of abuse and coverup within the Watchtower / Jehovah's Witness religion.
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  jelly

  After thinking about it I am now sure the guy is a perv. This is not normal behaviour.

  Terry
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  bay64me

  That is disgusting!

  Does the mother of these children think it's appropriate?
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  Nickey

  I don't agree with beating children in an excessive way like that. But for him to beat children that are not his own is something to be cautious about. He's a STEP-father and has no right beating those children like that. Not only that, but a grown man pulling a 10 and 12 year old girl's pants down and beating them is over the line.

  I agree with jelly, it sounds perverted. As if he's gaining some sense of pleasure in doing it.
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  hawgRyder

  Although it is not acceptible by any decent parents standards, but it IS NORMAL by JW standards. I was raised in that cult, and got out when I was old enough to leave home. I seen children get thrashed by hickory swithces, thorn bushes, shoes, belts, I myself was beaten with a boat paddle while on a camping trip with other JW famileys. My crime? I wanted to play on a sunny Saturday afternoon instead of study the Wachtower! Go to any of the Kingdom Halls and you will here the cries of innocent children as they are "disiplined"

  kc
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  TheOldHippie

  While admitting that people not always behave "like they wought to do", I will just say that

  hawgRyder, you are way out of line with your comments. I think, in all honesty, that I perhaps 10-15 times have seen kids been taken hard by the arm and let out of the hall into the library, and perhaps 4-5 times I know they have been beaten - and I am here speaking about 2 or 3 kids and a period of close to 30 years. Not that those things should have happened either, but my experiences are a far cry from what you claim is universal. And in those instances I have witnessed, the ones in the congregation who saw or heard it, shook their heads and at times have spoken together that such things should not take place, thatthe parents ought not to be allowed to do so.

  Undisfellowshipped, I justwant to point thatyour quotes are between 40 and 50 years old, and that quotes from recent years would give another picture. I guess most kids growing up in whatever environment 50 years ago, were slapped attimes, but now that is rarly to be seen. In my country, it is forbidden by law, and Witnesses follow that law. 50 years ago it was not. The Bible has not changed, but common sense and decency has won.