AUSTRALIA
The Australian
JULY 27, 2015
Rick Morton
Social Affairs Reporter
Sydney
At least 125 allegations of child sex abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses did not proceed to further investigation because the church’s internal practices required at least two observers of the abuse to come forward, the royal commission will hear.
And of the 1006 alleged offenders identified by the church since 1950 not a single one was reported to the police or other “secular authorities”.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse began its new study of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sydney today and will hear evidence that the Church believes the best defence against child sex abuse are “loving and protective parents”.
The commission will hear that the most severe punishment inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses for abuse of this kind is to be “ disfellowshipped”, the equivalent of being excommunicated in which no member of the church is to contact the person kicked out.
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