Jehovah’s Witnesses (Australia) to join redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors
Jacob S
Registrant
Jehovah’s Witnesses to join redress scheme for sexual abuse survivors
Jehovah's Witnesses say they will join the national redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors, with government urging the group to contact officials.
It's about time. Of course the only reason is because if they didn't, they'd lose tax exempt status.
I'd love if it if the USA did something like this, but we have no spine when it comes to holding religious organizations accountable. For instance, the Southern Baptist church has ignored numerous calls to develop a database of its denomination. Tax Exempt status should give the government the right to hold organizations to a certain degree of accountability and among that should be, imo, a centralized record of complaints. Perhaps seventy percent of Southern Baptist ministers have known of other ministers who have engaged in sexual misconduct with a congregant ( https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/96096.pdf ) but the central office of the church simply would rather not know -- in order to avoid the legal and financial culpability that has gripped the catholic church.
The SBC will expel churches for employing convicted sex offenders, as this eye-rolling headline points out
Southern Baptists Expel 2 Churches Over Sex Abuse and 2 for L.G.B.T.Q. Inclusion
but that's only when the evidence is thrust in their face. Otherwise, when they receive information (including through their DEEPLY flawed online reporting mechanism), it seems all they do is send that information back to the offending church and the larger organization washes their hands of it. The SBC will disfellowship a church that gets bad press, but will not investigate the church or work with suvivors. It is entirely about covering their own ass ( http://thewartburgwatch.com/2019/11...-victim-centric-or-transparent-caveat-emptor/ ).
The USA should follow Australia's example and demand that tax exempt organizations participate in a transparent, survivor-centric process for accountability or risk losing their status.
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further background on the Australia events:
Back in January:
"A former child migration society, a Christian denomination and a communications training group more often described as a "cult" have emerged as the only institutions that have elected not to join the National Redress Scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite having a combined 77 claims against them.
Fairbridge Restored Limited, Jehovah's Witnesses and Kenja Communication will no longer be eligible for government grants and may lose their charitable status for tax purposes after failing to sign on to the scheme by December 31, denying victims that recourse to compensation."
The 77 number is misleading. That's the not the number of cases of abuse these organizations have covered up, just the number of people who have applied for redress through this specific program. One can understand that perhaps survivors are not as likely to go through the process when they know the organization at fault is not participating.
Other notes:
According to another article, "it was also discovered that at least 60 other "Fairbridge kids" who have applied for up to $150,000 through the National Redress Scheme are caught up in complex bureaucratic wrangling" ( https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11...h-for-justice-through-redress-scheme/12868854 )
back in 2015-2016, it was determined JW failed to report over one thousand abusers over the last 60 years.