Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Other Christian institutions & contexts Jehovah's Witnesses Netherlands (national) · 2020

Netherlands: Utrecht University study documents 751 sexual-abuse reports within Jehovah's Witnesses community

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

congregation elders handling internal abuse complaints

Organization

Jehovah's Witnesses, Netherlands, Utrecht University — Departement Bestuurs- en Organisatiewetenschap

Spiritual nexus

Congregational elders' internal disciplinary authority over members — including committee hearings that could place a victim before her abuser — is the doctrinal mechanism the study identifies as suppressing disclosure and re-victimising those who came forward.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2020-01-23 · official commissioned study

    Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Datacentrum (WODC), Netherlands Ministry of Justice and Security — commissioned academic study. An interdisciplinary Utrecht University team led by Prof. Kees van den Bos, commissioned by the WODC following a parliamentary motion, documented 751 reports of sexual abuse within the Dutch Jehovah's Witnesses community and in-depth interviewed 10 victims or next-of-kin. It found victims rated the community's handling of their reports 3.3/10 versus 6.4/10 for the police, and that the closed, internally-adjudicated culture of the congregation actively discouraged reporting to secular authorities. The Jehovah's Witnesses' Dutch board sued to block publication and lost on appeal.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • closed community structure discouraging reports to secular authorities
  • internal elder-committee handling of complaints, sometimes in the perpetrator's presence

Primary record

Sources

official government commissioned study inquiry report WODC, 'Onderzoek naar ervaringen seksueel misbruik binnen de gemeenschap van Jehova's Getuigen openbaar' (23 January 2020). Dutch: official publication notice for the Utrecht University study. English gloss: 'Research into experiences of sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses community made public.'

Official Ministry-affiliated research body's publication notice.

university press release background Universiteit Utrecht, 'Onderzoeksrapport over misbruik binnen gemeenschap Jehova's getuigen blijft openbaar, ook na hoger beroep.' Dutch: confirms the report remained public after the Jehovah's Witnesses' unsuccessful appeal. English gloss: 'Research report on abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses community remains public, even after appeal.'

Confirms litigation history and outcome.

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