IICSA Investigators Fail Survivors of Child Abuse and Will Fail To Protect Future Victims.
*Trigger Warning*
The following article discusses the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and contains information which may be upsetting or triggering. If you are effected by any of the content there are contact details for organisations that may be able to help here. You can also visit the Mind website for further information or support.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was set up “because of serious concerns that some organisations had failed and were continuing to fail to protect children from sexual abuse”. This particular branch of the investigation specifically looks at child protection in religious organisations and settings, and as part of the investigation they obtained evidence from 38 religious organisations with a presence in England and Wales.
In their executive summary they state “what marks religious organisations out from other institutions is the explicit purpose they have in teaching right from wrong; the moral turpitude of any failing by them in the prevention of, or response to, child sexual abuse is therefore heightened. The religious organisations and settings examined in this investigation have a range of theological beliefs and practices. Respect for a diversity of beliefs is a hallmark of a liberal democracy. However, freedom of religion and belief can never justify or excuse the ill‐treatment of a child, or a failure to take adequate steps to protect them from harm”.
While the seeming motivations for doing the investigation are to help provide better protection and justice for potential victims and survivors of abuse, the investigators have made questionable decisions which has lead to more credibility being given to the representatives of the religious organisations than to the victims of the abuse. These representatives have been given the ability to tout the official storyline of their organisation without testing the validity of the statements and without any mention of how these statements directly contradict the experiences of CSA survivors. Not only have multiple religious organisations given information that incorrectly reflects the experiences and policies in place, but the investigators have not challenged any of the statements made and have blatantly ignored vital facts and information that should have been obtained and reported on.
IICSA and the LDS Church
Written by Bethan Beaver
For the investigation into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) the IICSA investigators received a statement from Andrew Ford who is a member of the LDS faith and works as a solicitor. Ford was authorised by the LDS church to provide details of Church history and policies regarding child abuse and the protective measures they have in place to prevent abuse, and safeguard victims. Unfortunately investigators choose not to follow up on some of the evidence within this statement which does not actually reflect the full truth regarding risks, policies, and teachings.
There are multiple examples of their failings including:
not investigating whether there were other times that children and youth may be alone or in vulnerable situations at church
not investigating how their beliefs (specifically the power they believe to possess in discerning truth) can impact how child abuse is handled
not investigating why the LDS church has a dedicated legal advice line that church leaders call before taking any action to report abuse to the authorities or looking into how many calls this abuse helpline fields each year.
Activities involving children and youth
Ford outlines “activities involving children” where he discusses church services, meetings, and other mid-week activities where children or youth may be present with adults, he claims that the adults that work with or teach these children and young people do not need a DBS check because of the “robust and well-managed” policies they have in place to protect and supervise any activities. He states:
that a person must not be given a Church calling or assignment that involves working with children or youth if his or her membership record has an annotation for child sexual abuse;
when adults are teaching children or youth in Church settings, at least two responsible adults should be present;
at least two adults must be present in all Church-sponsored activities attended by youth or children
This claim is not wholly true because it misses out entirely the fact that children and youth are regularly given one-on-one worthiness interviews with their bishop or his assigned councillors - the handbook used by Church leaders specifically states that these interviews should take place in private but an adult can attend if desired. Within these interviews children and young people will (among other things) be asked “Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts and behaviour?” and “Do you obey the law of chastity?”, should the answer not be to the satisfaction of the church leader (or if he is prompted to do so by the “Holy Spirit”) he can ask follow up questions to try and get the person to divulge any sinful behaviour that they might have participated in, or potentially bring up any abuse which they may have suffered. The Church considers these interviews to be a part of “pastoral care” and while it is recommended that the Church leaders are to be “sensitive to the character, circumstances and understanding of the young man or young woman” and should not be “unnecessarily probing or invasive in their questions”, they also recognise that there are times when a discussion of moral cleanliness is appropriate and further questioning may be needed. The LDS Church takes such a firm stance on their rights to ask these questions that in 2018 they excommunicated Sam Young, an LDS Bishop who spoke out against the process after discovering that his own children had been asked inappropriate and invasive questions by their bishop (you can find out more about this here). So while the Church claims that its processes protect children and youth, they leave room for inappropriate questioning, grooming, and abuse to take place.
The Power of Discernment
Another important fact to take note of is that the LDS church believes that through Priesthood authority (power and authority to act for God) that they have the power of decrement, that is the power to tell when someone is telling the truth. this “power” has historically been used by Church leaders to tell whether allegations of abuse are true. For example in a case from 2012 it was revealed that a Bishop was alerted to potential child abuse by one of his congregation members, upon speaking with the abuser who denied the allegation this bishop used prayer and this “power” to determine that the abuser was telling the truth. He did not investigate the allegations further or report the issue to the police as he did not believe that any abuse had taken place. Unfortunately this means that the abuser was able to go on and abuse more children before finally being caught and convicted. This is not the only case of its kind, and it shows another massive loophole in the reporting process, if the church leader can claim that he was not aware of abuse taking place because his “power” told him there was no abuse taking place then they feel their inaction is justified.
In addition to the belief that this “power of discernment” can help to identify if an abuser is telling the truth, it has also been used to determine if a victim of abuse has any responsibility for what happened. While this quote is from a talk given in 1992, it is the first article that comes up if you search “abuse” under magazine articles on the LDS website. Sadly there are victims of rape and abuse who are still subject to this type of thinking by Church leaders.
Abuse Advice Line
In his statement to ICCSA Andrew Ford advises that the Church has operated its abuse helpline since 2002 and it is available for any bishop or stake president to call for advice when addressing any situation involving abuse. This helpline is operated by solicitors “engaged by the church in England and Wales, to answer questions and provide instruction about how to assist victims, comply with local laws and requirements for reporting abuse, and protect against further abuse…in addition the Church has a legal department located at its Europe Area Office which works with external lawyers in England and Wales on all legal matters affecting the Church, including child protection and abuse issues as required”.
The IICSA choose not to inquire any further on how many calls the abuse helpline receives each year from Church leaders and to date the LDS Church has never disclosed this information. Additionally IICSA did not press for further information on exactly what is meant by church leaders getting advice on how to “comply with local laws and requirements for reporting abuse”, this is a crucial question that should have been asked because there have been cases in other countries where LDS bishops have called this helpline and been advised that there was no need to report the abuse to authorities because the discovery of the abuse was a privileged confession as clergy. So with a history of hiding behind clergy laws you would think that the IICSA would have some interest in knowing that the LDS Church is in fact contacting the police in every instance of child abuse brought to their attention.
The LDS Church like many other religious organisations has an image and reputation that they want to uphold so it was never in their best interest to give a full and honest accounting of the facts, and IICSA should have been prepared for this. The fact that neither the process of undertaking one-on-one interviews with a minor, nor the use of the power of discernment were disclosed by the LDS Church is abhorrent, but the IICSA is arguably more at fault for not properly investigating the policies and procedures of the Church. The details of these worthiness interviews are easily accessible on the LDS website and would be common knowledge to any LDS member had they chosen to question one. By not taking this investigation further IICSA are taking the statements made by Andrew Ford as the whole truth of the matter, which makes the point of an “investigation” redundant - if they are not even going to bother following up on basic beliefs and process that the Church has then there really is no reason to believe they are going to satisfactorily investigate any claims brought to them. The devastating truth is that across the globe child abuse is a problem within many different types of organisations, religious ones being no exception. Each of these organisations has within them a particular culture that has the ability to help perpetrators to avoid accountability, and pressure victims into remaining silent.
IICSA and Jehovah’s Witness’s
Written by Barnaby Beaver
As a former Jehovah’s Witness living in the UK, I was optimistic that IICSA would represent some positive change within the Jehovah’s Witness community, alongside some real reform in the UK around CSA, as well as bringing about justice for the victims is not just the publicity, but reparations from Watchtower in acknowledgement of its gross negligence of dealing with child abuse. It pains me that the recent report released 02/09/2021 does just the opposite. While I am not a victim of CSA personally, I have seen the effects it has had on my own wife (ex-Mormon) and am passionate about seeing real improvements in not just Jehovah’s Witnesses but all high control groups.
The IICSA report may generate some much-needed attention on Institutional child sexual abuse within religious organisations like Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, it is a setback for achieving real reform within the organisation. This is due to IICSA giving far too much power to representatives of the organisation in selecting what cases are presented for review, as well as a lack of fact-checking on the actual policies of Watchtower under review. So in a similar way that the LDS Church there are clear indications that IICSA has not only allowed for the misrepresentation of facts, they have chosen not to further investigate very worrying signs that child abuse is being ignored or covered up.
IICSA didn’t challenge worrying information
One very real problem is the lack of concern that IICAS seem to have over extremely worrying and rhetoric around what a “willing participant” is in relation to child sexual abuse, and what they would consider an adult being “ a few years older” is.
While IICSA did make a point in saying that it would be “better to clarify” what these phrases mean, this is simply not good enough. There should never be a grey area when it comes to child abuse, and from a legal perspective, a child can not consent to sexual activity if they are underage. There is a term for this, it is called statutory rape.
Reporting Abuse
The IICSA report states that “under current procedures of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, elders are required to contact the Legal Department and Service Department of the Central Branch Office for guidance about disclosure and if there is reason to believe a child is ‘in danger of abuse’ to also go to the statutory authorities”. This suggests that they treat this process as being separate from the scriptural requirements to expel someone from the congregation. IICSA further explains that this ecclesiastical process “requires either a confession or the evidence of at least two people – one making the allegation and another to verify it”, the report goes on to say “it is imperative that the Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to keep this distinction clear in their policies and practices, since such responses alone may not be sufficient to ensure the protection of children”.
There are some major issues with this, firstly IICSA seems to be accepting that Jehovah’s Witnesses keep a clear distinction between the legal process and the ecclesiastical one, but the reality is that the “two-witness rule” shapes whether someone is guilty or not. So whatever the policy is it will have a bearing on how serious they take an allegation of abuse. Additionally IICSA seems to just accept that the Jehovah’s Witnesses do comply with mandatory reporting regulations, and suggest as stated above that if there is reason to believe a child is in danger that a report is always made to the statutory authorities. Not only is this untrue, but there is also significant evidence available to show that this is not the case. Unfortunately has had the effect of media outlets spreading misleading information about the situation within the organisation, this was seen in the coverage done by the BBC and The Times where they stated that there are policies requiring all allegations to be reported to the police.
This is an example of a principle known within Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘Theocratic Warfare’, where being able to lie or omit key information to those outside the organisation is permissible if it protects ‘Jehovah’s name’.The sad reality is that even if the UK had mandatory reporting, Watchtower would still not report cases of CSA to the authorities. It would look to move to invoke Clergy-Confidentiality exemptions on its requirements, as it did in the US State of Montana, which has mandatory reporting. Watchtower does not have child safeguarding as its chief priority. The chief concern for the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses is upholding Jehovah’s name, meaning that they will do all they can to not have stories that put policies/the organisation in a bad light. This is because of the belief that it is God’s organisation and ‘The Truth’, and such stories being public knowledge effectively display that their organisation has the same problems that numerous human religious organisations across the globe are facing, which runs in stark contrast to the image they wish to portray to any potential recruits in the public of a special organisation that deals with things in the right, theocratic, way.
All the above should have been understood by the commission. Activists and survivors were providing the commission all the information they could need to question and challenge Watchtowers statements. It’s clear that IICSA had no intention to do any ‘challenging’ and was more interested in the box-ticking exercise and asking pre-prescribed questions.
They were also set a brilliant template in the Australia Royal Commissions investigation into CSA within Jehovah’s Witnesses. No stone was left unturned. Even questioning elders on whether theocratic warfare was being invoked with replies given. ARC went far beyond the scope of the IICSA in looking at actual historic CSA, not just from 2009-2019. They identified that Watchtower had records of over 1000 child abusers and their victims, with not even one being reported to authorities. IICSA is aware the Jehovah’s Witnesses at their UK Branch HQ in Chelmsford are sitting on a database containing detailed records of thousands of perpetrators across the UK and took no action. This is why Watchtower on the whole, is happy with this report. They have no need to give any real sensitive information from their large database, which would be damaging for their image as ‘God’s organisation’, they’ve gotten away with lying to the public at large over their reporting policies, and they are confident that no one is going to challenge them too much further. Nowhere have I seen mention of any kind of redress scheme, such as in ARC, so it appears no financial punishment either.
With all that said, how on Earth can IICSA or CSA victims have any confidence the report will drive any real change within Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why was the scope of abuse looked at so narrow within the report, and why was it so underfunded per capita compared to say ARC?
“...One comment I would make is I think an awful lot of money and an awful lot of police time now goes into these historic offences and all this malarkey. You know, £60m I saw was being spaffed up a wall on some investigation into historic child abuse and all this kind of thing. What on earth is that going to do to protect the public now”
The grim truth is that the UK government doesn’t take institutional child abuse seriously. Just reading statements made by our current Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019 around the idea of ‘spaffing money’ on investigating historic abuse, shows a clear correlation of attitude between those at the top and those in control of the investigation.
In contrast to the opinion expressed by Boris Johnson, investigating historic cases is crucial in not only providing real justice to the victims, it helps to identify where things went wrong and how they can be changed to prevent abuse in the future. The only way to make Watchtower truly accountable and to push any kind of reform is to drag every case they have on record in their database into the light, because this is an organisation that has no shame in what it will try to get away with, and sadly has already gotten away within this report.
This report is a blow to CSA victims and activists. Whether you are a former Jehovah’s Witness, or former member of the LDS church reading this, please do not give up on looking to affect real change. Please continue to make your voices heard, as it’s the only way to expose the atrocities that are lurking beneath the surface of these groups.
With just taking into consideration the above points it is clear that IICSA has not done a satisfactory job at investigating child sex abuse within religious organisations. The investigation was commissioned because of concerns that these organisations had failed, and were continuing to fail to protect children from sexual abuse, yet IICSA themselves have clearly not made enough effort to investigate, listen to the evidence, and give survivors the voice and platform they deserve.
This investigation has been ongoing for over two years, and the Child protection in religious organisations and settings report that has been produced is nearly 300 pages long. With all the time and money poured into this report, and the efforts and sacrifices made by the victims who shared their stories all that IICSA could come up with were two recommendations. Out of these only one of them applies to the LDS Church or the Jehovah’s Witness’s:
Recommendation 1: Child protection policy, procedures and training
All religious organisations should have a child protection policy and supporting procedures, which should include advice and guidance on responding to disclosures of abuse and the needs of victims and survivors. The policy and procedures should be updated regularly, with professional child protection advice, and all organisations should have regular compulsory training for those in leadership positions and those who work with children and young people.
This recommendation is very insulting to anyone who has ever been a victim of child abuse because having a policy in place will not prevent someone from becoming a victim of child abuse. IICSA themselves even state they are “alerted to the problem of ‘disguised compliance’, where an organisation might take care to have a policy in place but the reality is one of half‐hearted or non‐existent implementation”. It is absolutely unacceptable that this was the only thing they could come up with as a solution to protect children from future abuse. They had a responsibility to thoroughly investigate the systemic problems within these religious organisations so that more practical measures could be put in place, instead they have abandoned the very people they were supposed to be helping.
If you have any questions, comments, or want to suggest a topic to be covered you can contact me via email at bisexualexmo@gmail.com or reach out to me on Twitter or Facebook.
If you are struggling with any topic mentioned in these articles please remember that you will always be able to find a community out there that loves and appreciates you for who you are, regardless of your faith, gender, or sexual orientation. I would encourage anyone questioning their beliefs, or struggling with mental health issues to either reach out to someone they trust or go to https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org for further advice and support.
Additional Resources:
IICSA report can be found here: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/26895/view/child-protection-religious-organisations-settings-investigation-report-september-2021.pdf
Helpful Contacts:
Support for adult survivors of childhood abuse
Help for Adult Victims of Child Abuse (HAVOCA)
havoca.org
Information and support for adults who have experienced any type of childhood abuse, run by survivors.
The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC)
0808 801 0331
support@napac.org.uk
napac.org.uk
Supports adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse. Offers a helpline, email support and local services.
Support for Survivors
0115 962 2722
hello@supportforsurvivors.org
supportforsurvivors.org
Support for adult survivors of child abuse.
Abuse support for children and young people
Childline
0800 1111
childline.org.uk
Support for children and young people in the UK, including a free helpline and 1-2-1 online chats with counsellors.
Kidscape
0207 823 5430
kidscape.org.uk
Information and advice for parents, carers and young people with concerns about school bullying and abuse.
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
0800 800 5000 (for adults concerned about a child)
0800 1111 (18 or under – Childline helpline)
nspcc.org.uk
Support and information for children and anyone worried about a child.
YoungMinds
0808 802 5544 (Parents Helpline)
85258 (Crisis Messenger for young people – text the letters YM)
youngminds.org.uk
Committed to improving the mental health of babies, children and young people, including support for parents and carers.
