Blondie:
I take your point, and this is something I was wholly unaware of until I discovered on this board and other sites. And I think that the vast majority of the public are unaware of it. It is a shameful, disgusting, dangerous and entirely inhuman policy and I condemn it without hesitation or reservation.
Another question which occurred to me is this. In the UK, anyone who has dealings with children in a formal way (e.g. teachers, Boy Scout leaders, swimming teachers, etc.) has to be vetted for previous convictions. I don't know whether this applies to Sunday School teachers in the various churches or not. I was going to ask whether the same would apply to JWs who are involved with children, perhaps doing 'bible studies'. But I may have answered my own question, because JWs have no specific activities aimed at children, do they? Children have to sit through the 'adult' services/meetings (and in my very limited experience, that's not far from abuse in itself).
Here, adherence to the GO church is nominally very strong. This is, I believe, the only country in the world where McDonald's serves a special menu during Lent. But the adherence is mainly nominal. The far stronger influence is family (and money). Divorce rates are very low, there are very few single mothers, etc. What actually happens often is that adultery/taking a mistress or lover is condoned as long as it is kept private and does not shame the family overmuch. Reported child abuse is low here, but I suspect that it is far more prevalent than generally believed but 'swept under the carpet'. This island is still reportedly the destination of choice of many 'white slave trade' people traffickers.