fast jehu: Could you give me a link to the source, where I can find this statement?
In the Submissions on behalf ofWatchtower Bible and Tract Societyof Australia & Others9 November 2015, this statement was made (pg 15):
Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern to any right thinking parent or adult, and to see it only as an “institutional” problem would be to miss an essential truth: that much abuse occurs within families.
The Commission responded with this in Report of Case Study No. 29 October 2106 (pg 8):
A key submission made on behalf of the Watchtower & Ors was that:
Familial child sexual abuse is not institutional sexual abuse, as has been acknowledged by the Commission. Similarly it is self-evident that when child sexual abuse occurs outside ‘institutional’ contexts as defined, the response to it does not fall within the Terms of Reference of this Commission.
The Commission proceeds on the basis that when an allegation of familial sexual abuse becomes known to an elder and is subsequently Scripturally investigated by congregation elders, it ceases to be familial abuse and becomes institutional abuse. This conflation of familial and institutional sexual abuse does not accord with the Terms of Reference.