Mormon leaders unveil new rules allowing another adult in room for interviews

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

March 26, 2018

By Peggy Fletcher Stack and Benjamin Wood

Amid a grass-roots outcry about sexually explicit interviews with children and sexual assault allegations leveled at a former Mormon mission leader, the LDS Church’s governing First Presidency unveiled revised guidelines Monday for one-on-one meetings between members and local lay leaders while emphasizing that most abuse allegations are “true and should be taken seriously.”

In a document titled “Preventing and Responding to Abuse,” congregational leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are encouraged to invite a parent or other adult to sit in an adjoining room when meeting with women and children.

A change to those instructions includes the option for the interviewee to ask a witness to sit in on the interview itself.

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