Chamber of
Deputies Written Question 4-03795
presented by
ASCARI Stefania
text of
Friday 15 November 2024, session no. 382
ASCARI . — To the Minister of the Interior, to the Minister of Justice . — To know – given that:
There are faith communities around the world that provide resources, support and opportunities to the most vulnerable, also playing a significant role in the protection of minors;
Other religious institutions, however, are listed among formal organizations where serious deficiencies in safeguarding policies, systematic psychological and sexual abuse of children and cover-ups of allegations are found;
On November 1 , 2024, Ansa reported that an investigation by the Florence Public Prosecutor's Office led to the indictment of a Jehovah's Witness accused of repeated sexual abuse against 7 girls. The abuse, which lasted for 4 years, allegedly began in 2014 inside the Kingdom Hall;
with a press release the religious denomination announced that it was unaware of the matter and that it had expelled the member in 2018;
according to foreign government and press sources, Jehovah's Witnesses have been the subject of several investigations by government authorities of foreign countries who have unanimously noted, among other things, the inadequacies of internal procedures and policies for the protection of minors, the tendency not to encourage reporting, the concealment of incidents of abuse and paedophilia, the lack of collaboration with the authorities, as well as serious cases of secondary victimisation;
in the Netherlands, where the confession would have opposed the call to establish an internal investigation into cases of child abuse, the Chamber of Deputies would have commissioned researchers from the University of Utrecht to carry out such a study. The heavy conclusions of the report, made public in January 2020, would be in line with what emerged in government investigations;
the recent investigation by the New Zealand Royal Commission, in addition to similarly confirming the findings of other government commissions, has highlighted that the questioning of child and young victims of sexual abuse conducted by members of the so-called internal judicial committee of Jehovah's Witnesses, was configured as "inappropriate and emotionally and psychologically violent";
to establish a judicial committee in cases of abuse, Jehovah's Witnesses around the world would use the scriptural rule of the "two witnesses" according to which a report of abuse is considered reliable only if there are at least two eyewitnesses to the fact;
although religion claims that the rule only regulates matters of an ecclesiastical nature, the aforementioned government investigations would have found that applied to contexts of child abuse, it would have contributed to falsifying reality, increased the risk of crime and generated further suffering for the victims;
even in our country the media have repeatedly reported on cases of abuse and cover-ups within the confessional, confirmed by former congregation elders who presided over such judicial committees, without however any attention from the institutional side –:
whether they do not deem it necessary and urgent, within their sphere of competence, to adopt initiatives aimed at investigating the phenomena described in the introduction;
whether and what initiatives, within their sphere of competence, the Ministers questioned intend to adopt to address the serious phenomenon of child abuse in religious contexts.
(4-03795)
