While it's true that we didn't know as much about child sex abuse in the past, it was always known that it was wrong. The Watchtower claims to be directed by God, why didn't he direct them to be better than other religions at the time when it came to protecting innocent children? Is it not a "spiritual paradise"?
And it is absolutely not true that children often lie about being abused. While it has happened on occasion, it is not the norm and anytime a child claims to be abused it should be taken very seriously.
About the Borg not cooperating with the commission they said that it was probably because they wanted to protect the identities of jw's who had been abused.
This is ridiculous. The commission would protect the identity of any child that has been abused, their names would not be released. It is the identity of the child predators and their own reputation they are seeking to protect.
They claimed that all that child abuse stuff happened in the past and doesn't happen now. The society has never told elders not to go to the police and that elders who haven't have decided that on their own.
So something magical happened around 1995 or so that suddenly caused child sexual abuse to stop?
The society may never have explicitly told elders not to go to the police, but they created a culture where the idea of "not bringing reproach on Jehovah's name" was paramount, the judgement of elders was absolute and where all transgressions were considered a spiritual matter only. To this day they still ask that they be contacted before the elders talk to the authorities, what does that tell you?
that we should trust in Jehovah's organisation and if we do then we won't pay attention to these discouraging reports
Typical JW behavior, but how sad. This is how all corrupt organization flourish, people are unwilling to accept or act on information that would be inconvenient to themselves or require them to admit they made a mistake in choosing a religion. They are complicit in the continuing abuse.