JwNewZealandRoyalCommission223

Jehovah's Witnesses in New Zealand may have been as irresponsible in their child abuse policies as JWs in Australia.

The New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into child abuse of children in state care and care of religious institutions lasted six years until 2024. It culminated in a 3000-page report covering the period 1950-1999.

JWs fought repeated legal actions for three years, firstly to be excluded from the inquiry, and when this failed, to get the 60 pages of the report that dealt with JWs suppressed, which also failed.

They argued about the word "care" and claimed no young people had been in their care. The Royal Commission of Inquiry researched this claim and JWs lost. Judges itemized the ways in which JWs children were in the care of congregations and how investigations by JWs elders into abuse allegations were inadequate.

Testimony to the Commission revealed that committees of elders had interrogated girls without the girls' parents present and ask for intimate details, nevertheless then dismissed it all with the question, "Where is your other witness?" The sect uses or misuses a Bible rule that states two witnesses (i.e. two observers) are needed to establish guilt. One woman abused as a child by her father, a respected elder, was disbelieved by JWs for 50 years but believed by the Royal Commission.

The New Zealand Inquiry could not give overall total statistics of child abuse among JWs in New Zealand because of poor JWs record-keeping.

Australia's Royal Commission, in contrast, obtained 5000 documents from the Watchtower Society of Australia in 2015 which included case files of: "1,006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse dating back to 1950." (p. 58) The files indicated about 1800 victims. Of the alleged perpetrators 108 were elders or ministerial servants, 579 confessed, 401 were disfellowshipped and 230 reinstated. (pp 58-59) None of this had been reported to the police.

The Australian report (2016) concluded: "The organisation’s general practice of not reporting serious instances of child sexual abuse to police or authorities – in particular, where the complainant is a child – demonstrates a serious failure by the organisation to provide for the safety and protection of children..." (p. 77)

In New Zealand the JWs response to child abuse was no better. Probably because the religion is ruled by a Governing Body, located in the USA, which enforces uniform rules and policies on JWs in every country. In New Zealand, like in Australia, "The inquiry has not seen any evidence of the Jehovah's Witnesses referring sexual abuse allegations to police..."