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26 January 2020
The end of an exciting week
Exactly two years ago today, Reclaimed Voices had its first meeting with employees of the Ministry of Security and Justice. Our goal? To discuss how Jehovah's Witnesses deal with complaints of sexual abuse and to request an independent investigation.
Now after two years, there is an investigative report. But that hasn't gone without a fight.
The the Jehovah's Witnesses' leadership in the Netherlands:
- has never responded to our requests for dialogue
- has failed to comply with Minister Dekker's request to carry out his own investigation
- has reacted indignantly in the media when the House of Representatives passed a unanimous motion for an independent scientific study
- has trivialized the problem by talking about shooting a cannonball at a mosquito
- has shown no compassion whatsoever towards victims of abuse
- has called Reclaimed Voices a foundation that has started a smear campaign against JW
Later, the board of the Jehovah's Witnesses pledged their cooperation with the investigation and expressed to await the results of the investigation with confidence. They also drew the attention of their active members to the investigation in April 2019.
However, when the investigation was fully completed, a report was written, and the Board was invited to discuss the recommendations and conclusions on 20th December 2019, they were dissatisfied with the outcome. They then received the entire research report to study it.
On 9 January, a letter was sent in which the JWs indicated that they did not agree with the investigation: the investigation was said to be factually and scientifically incorrect, defamatory and insulting, and to incite discrimination against Jehovah's Witnesses.
Persons who participated in the investigation, including the Reclaimed Voices Foundation, were dismissed as disgruntled ex-members, and statements of RV in the media were dismissed as possible forms of hate speech. The request in this letter was therefore not to release the report for publication and politicians should not make policy on this.
We knew nothing of these developments. All we knew was that the report would be released on 23 January and we were promised that we would be allowed to inspect the report the day before under strict embargo, so that we could prepare for the discussion we would have with the investigators before the report became public at 1:00 pm
Little could we have suspected that that day would be
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