AUSTRALIA
JWVictims
BY ALEXANDRA JAMES ON JUNE 19, 2017
During the first day of the Australian Royal Commission Inquiry into Jehovah’s Witnesses, victim “BCB” spoke very bravely of her sexual abuse at the hands of a local elder, Bill Neill. Click this PDF of the Transcript-(Day-147) of the Inquiry, or you can visit the ARC website here, to read her entire testimony; Barrister Stewart’s summary of her story begins on page 15147.
Recently, “BCB” contact me through this website and wanted to share more of her story and viewpoint. This is a very powerful statement of how such abuse can so easily happen in the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, one that I hope all readers will share:
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If you have never been a victim of child sexual abuse then of course you wouldn’t understand how difficult it is to talk about what is happening to you. Long before the abuse starts the perpetrator begins their grooming campaign. For example, the following circumstances were in place to enable an Elder to abuse me:
First, become an Elder in a religion where young children are taught from birth that it is God’s chosen religion, that God has a personal name of Jehovah whom everyone is encouraged to have a personal relationship with, and that the teachings of the religion are referred to by everyone as “the Truth”. Teach them that the Elders are chosen by Jehovah God’s Holy Spirit and must be deferred to in all matters of spirituality and morality.
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