Jehovah's Witnesses kept secret list of hundreds of child molestation reports, says report

March 25-- Mar. 25--The Jehovah's Witness community allegedly maintained a secret list of hundreds of child molestation reports by "undocumented child molesters."

According to The Atlantic, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, which serves at the head of the Jehovah's Witness organization, sent a survey to its 10,883 U.S. Kingdom Halls regarding abuse within their community. The survey also asked how the community viewed the abusers and how widely known it was that they were abusers.

The reports were mailed back to Watchtower in blue envelopes and scanned into a computer, but the information was never shared with law enforcement.

In 2014, during a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed a Jehovah's Witness leader molested him in 1986, an attorney for the Watchtower said that the U.S. headquarters received 775 blue envelopes from 1997 to 2001 but did not say how many had been sent in since then.

According to the Atlantic, the organization has a "two-witness rule" which provides Biblical justification for covering up child molestation: "Barring a confession, no member of the organization can be officially accused of committing a sin without two credible eyewitnesses who are willing to corroborate the accusation."

Critics of the organization say that the rule made it easier for child molesters to abuse kids because they so rarely committed the crime in the presence of any one else.

In 2012, Candace Conti, a former member, was awarded $28 million by a jury after claiming a man she was paired off with for a community service project sexually abused her when she was 9 and group leaders ignored her because of the two-witness rule. A judge reduced the amount dramatically on appeal.

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