Have the Elders ever been instructed by their bethel to call the police for abuse?

by StephaneLaliberte 27 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  StephaneLaliberte

  Right now, there are a lot of talks on this topic in Quebec and, at the mid week meeting, they are reading the Letter sent in 2002 where it states that the Elders will call the authorities if the law forces them to.

  The strange thing is, it looks like even when there are laws to that effect, JWs seem to believe that it does not apply to them. For instance, I know that they do not report anything in Quebec, even if it is the law!

  So my question: Do you know of any instance where the elders have actually been instructed by the watchtower to call the authorities?
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  Crazyguy

  The 2002 letter still talks about establishing two witnesses so with out the second witness the elder won't do much in the hall.

  I had an experience where they elders were told by a sister that my daughter had told her she was abused sexually. They came over two of them took us out in to the car for privacy and told us. One elder even mentioned calling the police. Fortunately my daughter wasn't abused the sister was mistaken. But here is the thing, in the state I live in it's mandatory to report so the elders were compelled to tells us to report it to the police.
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  StephaneLaliberte

  I'm sure (like crazyguy confirmed) that a lot of elders will tell the victims to call the police even if they are not instructed to do that anywhere. What I really want to know is, when those elders make that phone call to the watchtower, when are they actually being told to call the police themselves? Did this ever actually happen? Or did they just write that text to sound like they are law abiding citizen even if they are not?
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  shadow

  Yes, 2 of them were to do it together anonymously from a payphone.
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  shadow

  Not joking
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  StephaneLaliberte

  Anonymously? How would they prove that they did what they had to do if they had to do it because of the law?
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  shadow

  One makes the call and the other is the witness that the call was made
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  stuckinarut2

  Why should it take a LAW to make people report such things?

  Would it not be reasonable that the (god-given) conscience should prompt someone to report?

  If one heard of an attempted or actual murder, does that need a LAW to prompt someone to report to the police??
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  stillin

  Here's my question. You know how rumors get blown out of proportion. If somebody HEARS that there was an incident, then realizes that the police were never called, and feels that there may be truth to the rumor, are THEY obligated to report it, too?

  It becomes a witch hunt, McCarthy era style. Hysteria prevails, nobody is more protected than they were, friends are split apart.
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  StephaneLaliberte

  Stillin: When a victim reports to an elder that she has been abused, this is not a rumor. This must be reported to the police. When a mother or legal Gardian tells the elders that their kid has been abused, this is not rumor; it must be reported to the police. And when an elder gives a shepherding call to a family (JW or not) where he can see signs that the kids are abused (odd bruises on the kid, house in filth, no food in the kitchen, these observations are not rumors, they must report to the police. YET, JWs say that the elders will do that ONLY if they are legally obligated to do so. The question I am raising here is: Do they even consider that there is in fact one country or state where they actually believe to be obligated to do so?

  Shadow: Seriously, I don’t understand this. The official position of the JW is that they will report it if they are obligated by the law to do so. There is no need for them to go to a phone booth and do it anonymously. Why? There are two possibilities that I can see here.

  1. The Bethel in fact told the brothers to stand by and do nothing. The elders bravely acted on their own. Due to their fear of reprisal by the Watchtower, they reported the pedophile anonymously.
  2. The country/state/province from where the elders called the Bethel were not on the “obligated by law” list. However, the brother in the legal department was being human that day and told the brothers they could not “officially” report it and to do it anonymously.

  I cannot imagine a third scenario in which the Bethel would instruct the brothers to do this anonymously while it is in fact their official public stand to do just that.