UNITED STATES
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting
By Trey Bundy / February 29, 2016
Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders are fighting on multiple fronts to hide what they know about child sexual abusers in their religion.
Facing more than a dozen civil lawsuits in the United States and a government investigation in the United Kingdom, the Witnesses are continuing to withhold court-ordered documents from authorities. In England this month, the religious organization went to court for a fourth time attempting to block investigators from looking at their child abuse records.
It’s been just over a year since Reveal began publishing and broadcasting stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses covering up child sexual abuse. Since our first story aired, hundreds of Witnesses and ex-Witnesses have contacted us, mostly to share their stories.
We’re continuing to report on the issue, but in the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of nine major findings so far:
1. For more than 25 years, the global leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has instructed elders to keep cases of child sexual abuse secret from law enforcement and members of their own congregations.
2. The Witnesses’ parent corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, issued the directives in a series of confidential memos dating back to 1989. The child abuse memos were approved by the Watchtower’s governing body, a group of men who are the spiritual leaders of the religion, like the Pope in the Catholic Church.
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