In my years as a JW the problem was that a persons private confession to elders was often leaked by the elders themselves .For instance a young brother I studied with went to the elders depressed about his habit of masturbation ,within a short time it was common knowlege who had a problem with what because an elder used his case as an example to others pointing to a certain young brother in the congo with this problem ,as there were few young single bros it did'nt take long for others to work out who the elder was talking about , and so the gossip mill began.
The other major source of revealing private matters were elders wives , it's not surprising people won't come forward to seek help.