DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES
AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Tens of Thousands of Visitors Since 2007


WATCHTOWER CULT CASHING IN on Department of Homeland Security Nonprofit Security Grants. Claiming to be "high risk targets" of "terrorist attack", the following local affiliates have applied for and received federal funds supposedly being used to upgrade the security of existing facilities:

MEMPHIS TENNESSEE ASSEMBLY HALL OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES -- $135,000.00.

ELDERON (BALTIMORE, MARYLAND) KINGDOM HALL OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSESES -- $142,000.00.



SITEMAP:

SECRET MEXICO COLONY FOUNDED BEFORE 1975 ARMAGEDON

WHO ARE and WHAT ARE "JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" -- REALLY? MULTIPLE 2023 UPDATES.

WATCHTOWER SOCIETY CLAIMS DOCTORS-NURSES "RAPING" JW PATIENTS NEW !!!

REVEALED: THE "SPIRITS" DIRECTING THE WATCHTOWER CULT! UPDATED !!!

IDENTITY THEFT: "JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" DECADES BEFORE WATCH TOWER's "JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES"

RACISM IN HISTORIC WATCHTOWER PUBLICATIONS BEST ON INTERNET

REVERSE RACISM AMONGST JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

DANGER!!! DOORKNOCKING THIEVES, RAPISTS, and MURDERERS

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES FUNERALS with FULL MILITARY HONORS 2022 UPDATES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES SPIES & SECRET AGENTS 2023 UPDATES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY - PRIVACY COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CHILD ABUSE COURT CASES 2023 UPDATES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CHILD MOLESTATION COURT CASES 2023 UPDATES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES SCHOOL & HOME SCHOOL COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS FOSTER PARENTS COURT CASES

MENTAL HEALTH: JW CRIMINALS versus NON-JW VICTIMS COURT CASES 2023 UPDATES

MENTAL HEALTH: JW CRIMINALS versus JW VICTIMS COURT CASES 2023 UPDATES

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS & MINOR CHILDREN COURT CASES SIX PAGES!!!

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS & MATURE MINORS COURT CASES

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS & UNBORN CHILDREN - PREGNANT JEHOVAH'S WITNESS MOTHERS COURT CASES

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS & OBLIGATION TO PARENT CHILDREN COURT CASES

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS & ADULT CHILDREN COURT CASES

JW CULT LIFE: ANOTHER JW STOLE MY IDENTITY

NEW!!! JW CULT LIFE: HUSBAND/WIFE/KIDS REGRET CONVERTING TO WATCHTOWER LIFE

JW CULT LIFE: SERIAL ADULTERESS TEENAGE JW WIFE

JW CULT LIFE: CONVERTED JW WIFE TAUGHT TO PIONEER and PROSTITUTE

JW CULT LIFE: JW VIRGIN BRIDE'S SOLO SEX LIFE

JW CULT LIFE: LDS MORMON TEEN BEFRIENDS THEN BETRAYS JW TEEN

NEW!!! JW CULT LIFE: CATHOLIC TEEN CHEERLEADER - HONOR STUDENT REJECTS SUCCESS JOINS JWs

CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL DIVORCE COURT CASE UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES DIVORCE CASES INTRO NEW !!!

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 2020s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2023

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 2010-2019 DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2023

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 2004-2009 DIVORCE COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 2000-2003 DIVORCE COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1996-1999 DIVORCE COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1990-1995 DIVORCE COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1986-1989 DIVORCE COURT CASES

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1980-1985 DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1970s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1960s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1950s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 1940s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES Pre-1940s DIVORCE COURT CASES UPDATED 2022

SECRET FINANCIAL BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL SIGNIFICANTLY UPDATED 2023

JOSEPH FRANKLIN RUTHERFORD MISSOURI BIOGRAPHY UPDATED 2023 NEW MATERIAL

SECRET FINANCIAL BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD UPDATED 2022

IF ALMIGHTY GOD DOES NOT EXIST, THEN NEITHER DO ... MULTIPLE MAY 2023 ADDITIONS

WATCHTOWER CULT VERSUS CHRISTIANITY

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SUPPRESSED NEWS: FIRST KNOWN USA COVID DEATH WAS A JEHOVAH'S WITNESS!!


LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

"[You and your wife should] enter the colporteur work, and, if necessary, leave [your FOUR YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER] with friends for a week, or a month, at a time. I feel sure the Lord will be pleased to have you do so." -- 

(Edited for clarity. Emphasis ours.)

This was written advice given in 1904 by WatchTower Cult founder, Charles Taze Russell, to an early-30s married couple, who were being pressured by two WatchTower Cult colporteurs living with them to forsake their family obligations, give up their home, give up the husband's good job, and also become subsistence level, fulltime traveling door-to-door WatchTower book peddlers.

This rarely-mentioned and nearly-forgotten facet of early WatchTower Cult life, which encouraged parents to leave their infants with others for extended periods of time while they traveled and sold books fulltime for the cult, lingered into the 1940s, when the WatchTower Cult expressly discouraged its followers from burdening themselves with children. Starting in 1889, Russell encouraged parents with older children to send them out alone into their community's business sections (not door-to-door) as "Child-Colporteurs"

At the infamous, now censored, 1941 ST. LOUIS WATCHTOWER CONVENTION, "Judge" Rutherford instructed those "Jehovah's Witnesses" who had been ignoring his counsel against having burdensome children that henceforth, children as young as TWO YEARS OLD, AND YOUNGER, should be selling his literature on sidewalks, alongside streets and highways, and from door-to-door. Thanks goes to PRINCE v. MASSACHUSETTS (1944) for putting an end to Rutherford's insanity.

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Children of The King

The Sunday morning discourse well established in the minds of all conventioners that all children will enter the street work henceforth; and, for example, who on a busy street corner could refrain from taking a magazine from two-year-old Charlotte Campbell, a dear little colored child from Green Springs, in one of the southern states. Charlotte has been a magazine publisher for several months. Many saw her at St. Louis going about with her magazine bag so big it almost dragged on the ground.

One young mother with another two year-old daughter carried on business in grand style at the corner of Eleventh and Olive streets, St. Louis. The little girl, clad in pink, smiled engagingly at the passers-by and offered a Kingdom News. Many a stern businessman stopped and tried to shake hands with her, but apparently she cared little for that religious practice; she just pushed the Kingdom News into their hands and said, "Read it!" Some gave the baby a coin, in which case she laughed and danced, and the mother presented the donor with a magazine.

A five-year-old son engaged in the book work, visiting homes on one side of the street while his mother worked opposite. One lady asked him who he was, and the little publisher replied, "I'm a sheep." The lady said, "I don't understand; you don't look like a sheep." The lad replied, "Well, I'm a sheep; and if you don't understand, I'll call my mother and she will explain." The mother came over and explained to the one of goodwill; result, placement of a bound book, and a happy little Kingdom publisher.

The declarations of the youngsters, under the direction of M. A. Howlett, were a joy to the heart. This event occurred Sunday afternoon and was limited to the little folks. A boy of 15, now a pioneer, said he was expelled from school by false patriots and it had put him into the Lord's work, whereof he was glad. A child of 13 expected to be a pioneer next year. A child of 12 had been a publisher for six years, and thanked God for the new book. A child of 10 has been a pioneer for a year, and was thankful for the book. A child of 9 (but this was probably not in St. Louis) was told by a policeman that he must get off the street; but, discreetly and properly, the child told him he could not do it unless he was under arrest. A child of 7 said that in July he had put in 107 hours in the witness work, and thanked Jehovah God for the privilege. A child from Detroit brought down the. house by saying, "I am 9, and have been a publisher for 9 years."

This last expression brings up the fact that on Oakland avenue, where the oil drippings from passing cars render the street unsafe in wet weather, the police thoughtfully placed two signs in juxta-position on a pole not far from The Arena; the signs read "Caution - Children" "Slippery when wet". So they are, and the big ones too. -- CONSOLATION, November 26, 1941, page 24.

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JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

In 1995, France held an inquiry into "sectes" (French equivalent of "cults"). That Board of Inquiry found the following "characteristics of sectes":

Mental destabilization; exorbitant financial requirements; isolation from general society; danger to physical health; forced conscription of child labor; antisocial speech; breaking of criminal laws; abuse of the court system through attempted enforcement of the sect's alleged legal rights; interference with businesses and employers; and attempted infiltration of government and other public agencies.

In 2006, France conducted an Inquiry regarding the physical and mental health of children in "movements with a sectarian character". That French Inquiry found that children living and growing up in "sectes" were at a disadvantage in comparison to other children, because social seclusion hindered their development, and led to an underdevelopment of their critical thinking skills.

The 2006 French Inquiry further postulated that children reared in "sectes" were unlikely to leave the "secte", because mainstream society had been depicted as monstrous and harmful throughout their childhood, and even if they should decide to leave, they were maladjusted to life outside the "secte". Of those children who actually did leave a "secte", it typically was the result of their parents' leaving; divorce where one parent was a member and the other was not; or forced removal after child protection agencies became involved on child protection grounds.

The French Inquiry estimated that leisure time for children growing up in "sectes" was severely limited. The French Inquiry estimated that 8 year-old children of Jehovah's Witnesses devoted around 23 hours weekly to "secte" study, preparing for "secte" meetings, and doing "secte" proselytizing -- all on top of school and homework. All of the children's interests and activities were limited to the "secte", and many "sectes" such as the Jehovah's Witnesses discouraged children from pursuing higher education by denying that anything children are taught in the outside world is accurate, or valuable to the "secte" and its mission. Moreover, for Jehovah's Witness children, school often was the only place where they interacted with people and children outside their "secte". The balancing of black and white group values with outside values, such as those learned at school, and the secte's instilled polarization of society as "good versus evil", placed a burden on children's everyday lives. Children were made to believe that the only important work they could do was for the "secte". "Sectes", such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, further induced negative feelings in its children of responsibility for other's lives, and guilt, by requiring them to convert as many people as possible in an attempt to "save" lives.

The introduction of specific laws to regulate religious high-control groups has been met with a big outcry of criticism. Critics argue on the basis of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, amongst other international treaties, that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; that this right includes freedom to change their religion or belief; and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.

BURDEN ON COURTS, LAW ENFORCEMENT, CHILD PROTECTION AGENCIES, HOSPITALS, DOCTORS, ETC.

It is estimated that there are 1200-1500 court cases filed every year in the United States which involve child custody disputes in Divorce cases involving a Jehovah's Witness Parent. In 1990, the chairman of the American Bar Association's Child Custody Committee estimated that roughly 50% of all child custody cases then being reviewed by state appellate courts involved a parent who was a Jehovah's Witness. In the mid-1980s, when there were only about two-thirds as many Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States as there are in 2016, the WatchTower Society's Legal Department was receiving 80-90 inquiries per month from its own Jehovah's Witnesses Members who were involved in divorce-related custody disputes.

Custody cases involving children who are being denied life-saving blood transfusions by their Jehovah's Witness Parents may be even more frequent. The only entity that has kept track of the numbers over the decades is the WatchTower Society Legal Department, and they certainly will never tell. One researcher has estimated that the annual rate of children of Jehovah's Witness Parents who need a life-saving blood transfusion is one case for every one thousand members or believing associates of the WatchTower Cult. That would mean that there are approximately 2000 - 3000 such cases here in the United States annually. Worldwide that estimate jumps to 10,000 - 15,000 cases annually. Readers should understand that in the United States, HIPAA has for all practical purposes ended the public reporting of court-ordered blood transfusions for JW Minors, as well as the public reporting of deaths of JW Adult due to refusing blood transfusions. (Researchers should take a look at the WatchTower Cult's support of the passage of HIPAA.)

Try to imagine the multiple burdens of various types that this needless issue places on the American judicial and health care systems every single year. For example, in Florida, in August 2011, the Broward County State Attorney stated that his local office alone had handled 12 cases in the past 3 years of instances where Jehovah's Witness Parents were refusing to consent to life-saving blood transfusions needed by their minor children. In 2007, the spokesperson for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee, told a reporter that that hospital alone had to go to court 2 to 3 times every year to get court authorization for life-saving blood transfusions for Jehovah's Witness Minors. In 1990, one Oklahoma City juvenile court judge related that he annually averaged ordering blood transfusions for five children of Jehovah's Witness Parents. In 1986, a spokesperson for the Harris County Children's Protective Services, of Houston, Texas, stated that HCCPS had requested and received custody of approximately 10-12 JW Children who needed life-saving blood transfusions. The more shocking point made by the HCCPS spokesperson was that there had been many more cases of children of Jehovah's Witnesses, in Harris County hospitals who needed life-saving blood transfusions, in which those hospitals themselves directly requested court intervention, without HCCPS involvement. HCCPS was called upon only under extreme circumstances. Interestingly, ten years later, in 1997, a spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney stated that their office handled 1 to 2 cases every month in which JW Parents refused to consent to blood transfusions needed by their minor children. In a 1989 interview, the spokesperson for Loma Linda University Children's Hospital, in California, told a reporter that that hospital alone administered 4 to 5 court-ordered blood transfusions to Jehovah's Witness Minors every year. In 1988, a Judge stated that the courts in Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky ordered one blood transfusion per month on average for children of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Do the math! The annual cost of this medieval Jehovah's Witness belief and practice in both time and expense to the American judicial and health care systems must be staggering. Much of this problem could be solved if state legislatures would codify their own state Supreme Court's decision that every child is legally entitled to necessary life-saving blood transfusions. THERE NEEDS TO BE A NATIONAL MOVEMENT PROMOTING SUCH IN EVERY STATE. Hospitals should be given the legal authority to automatically administer necessary life-saving blood transfusions to any child who needs such, rather than being forced to sit and watch children struggle for their lives, and even sometimes die, while hospital staff and attorneys are repeatedly forced to go to their local court and request permission simply to save those children's lives. Until that happens, more hospitals should do what Seattle's Children's Hospital did in 2001. In conjunction with Washington state law, Seattle's Children's Hospital developed an administrative policy that mandates that all "minors" admitted to its facility will receive all medically necessary emergency treatment, including blood transfusions. Tired of being forced to repeatedly seek judicial intervention during emergency situations, Children's Hospital now takes the position that if anyone is going to be forced to jump through legal hoops, then it will be the Jehovah's Witnesses Parents who may attempt to obtain a court order stopping the administration of life-saving blood transfusions.

The purpose of this website is to bring together in one website as many real-world cases involving children of Jehovah's Witness Parents as can be located. Currently, this website summarizes or discusses in varying degrees approximately 2000 cases and incidents -- including civil court cases, criminal court cases, complaints filed with various governmental agencies, media reports, and other miscellaneous memorializations. Approximately 500 Cases are summarized in the BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS section; approximately 200 Cases are summarized in the DIVORCES section; approximately 1100 Cases are summarized in the five CRIME related sections; and approximately 200 Cases are summarized in other sections. Additionally, this website is home for the INTERNET'S BEST webpages disclosing newly discovered relevant HISTORICAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION on the WatchTower Society and its leadership.

The information found on this website will hopefully be of benefit to parents, grandparents, and even attorneys involved in court cases involving members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. Other relatives, family friends, doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, ministers, government officials, and others involved in the lives of Jehovah's Witness Families may also find the information found on this website to be beneficial. Additionally, since court cases often provide otherwise unseen glimpses into the private lives of the involved parties, researchers, authors, and others interested in studying the culture, practices, beliefs, and other aspects of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion may also find the information found here to be highly informative and beneficial.

DIVORCE, CHILD CUSTODY, JW FAMILIES, AND THE LAW

The United States Supreme Court has yet to enter the fray of custody and religious upbringing of children in Divorce proceedings. Thus far, such decisions have been left to the individual states. This has resulted in a hodgepodge of rules and interpretations that vary from state to state. This is extremely interesting given the amount of litigation, but more significantly, given the fact that such state decisions often require an extremely delicate balancing of the constitutional right of each parent and of each child to freedom of religious expression, parenting, deciding medical care, etc.

Jehovah's Witness Parents, especially those with spouses who are not Jehovah's Witnesses, are generally aware of their own state's laws regarding the rearing of their children as Jehovah's Witnesses. The WatchTower Society's Legal Department is anxious to assist without charge Jehovah's Witnesses and their local attorney in custody proceedings. In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses have been instructed that the WatchTower Society's Legal Department should be notified of all custody cases in which the WatchTower religion is an issue. If the Jehovah's Witness Parent loses at trial level, the WatchTower Society is even more anxious to assist with the appellate case. If the case reaches the state's Supreme Court, the non-JW Parent may very well see a WatchTower Lawyer sitting at the opposing table. The WatchTower Society's Legal Staff includes attorneys who work custody cases on a fulltime basis. This has allowed them to gain an enormous amount of experience and expertise in child custody cases.

Thus, it should go without saying that it is absolutely essential for a non-JW Parent to obtain experienced legal advice and representation as soon as possible after the issue rears its head.

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, JW FAMILIES, AND THE LAW

"The day's news tells of a mother who sacrificed six ounces of her blood in a transfusion for her baby girl. Strange that the busy press should even consider this news. A mother who wouldn't consent to a blood transfusion for her child would be much greater news, and the world a sorry place indeed on the day that such news is found!" -- Columnist Allene Sumner, in 1926.

Since the WatchTower Society first stopped Jehovah's Witnesses from accepting blood transfusions in 1945, there has been a stream of state and federal court cases which have slowly but surely chipped away at the moral concept that to allow an adult or a child to needlessly die inside a hospital setting is something unconscionable to our modern society. However, such has nearly been completely accomplished -- thanks to the tireless efforts of the WatchTower Society's Legal Department.

The law in the United States regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and their refusal to accept blood transfusions is somewhat settled, although subject to exceptions. Most competent adults have the constitutional right to refuse to accept a blood transfusion, even if such refusal means they will die. Every year in the United States, an unknown number of adult Jehovah's Witnesses exercise their constitutional right to choose death over a life-saving blood transfusion. For every account of such death that is reported in the news media, there are an unknown multiple number of instances that go unreported due to ever-tightening confidentiality rules that restrain medical and hospital staff from disclosing the fact that a JW death was actually due to the deceased's refusal to accept a blood transfusion, or the refusal of consent by the JW next-of-kin. For example, recently, a high-profile JW was seriously injured in an auto accident. Multiple local media sources implied or outright stated that the JW died at the scene of the accident. A few media sources reported that the JW was pronounced dead on arrival at the ER. One lone media article reported that the high-profile JW not only was alive on arrival at the hospital, but that the JW's family members even had time to come to the hospital, and that the injured JW died at some point thereafter. Does anyone seriously doubt that blood transfusions were an issue in that death?

(Commercial break. This also explains why these two websites almost always contain more details and more accurate summaries than other websites. We try to exhaust every information source available at the time of summary before we post such. We only recently posted a summary of a court case that we have known about for a decade or longer. The delay resulted from our wait on verification that some of the principle actors were JWs, as we had long suspected. End of commercial.)

Adult Jehovah's Witness Parents and Guardians also will attempt to impose the same "death decision" on their minor children, but practically every hospital will attempt to obtain a court order which will permit them to administer medically necessary blood transfusions over the parent's objections -- assuming that the Jehovah's Witness Child is still alive by the time all the legalities are completed. Courts in the United States will nearly always appoint a temporary legal guardian under such circumstances to oversee and guarantee necessary medical care.

Readers should be aware that there have been a few isolated instances of inept judges who have refused the hospital's request for guardianship and consent to administer needed blood transfusions. Readers should also be aware that there have been a few isolated instances of hospitals which had administrative staff sympathetic to the WatchTower religion who have failed to even attempt to obtain judicial intervention. THESE ARE ADDITIONAL REASONS WHY THERE IS A NEED FOR A NATIONAL MOVEMENT TO HAVE EVERY STATE LEGISLATURE CODIFY THEIR OWN STATE'S SUPREME COURT DECISION WHICH ALREADY RULES THAT JEHOVAH'S WITNESS CHILDREN ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO LIFE-SAVING BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS.

Scenarios involving Jehovah's Witnesses Minors nearing the age of majority, pregnant JW Mothers and their "fetuses", and adult JWs who have existing parental obligations, are less settled, but are heading in the anticipated direction.

One of the benefits of studying the decades-long stream of court cases which have gradually given Jehovah's Witnesses the legal rights they now have regarding blood transfusions is learning about and understanding how during this decades-long process, the Jehovah's Witnesses have shared ideals and legal precedents with other groups which had common legal causes and interests.

For instance, the continued fight for legalization of abortion shares some of the same arguments as does the continuing blood transfusions issue as it relates to "unborn children", or as Jehovah's Witnesses prefer to label them when arguing such court cases -- "fetuses". Legal precedents have been shared by both groups. Opening the way to reject blood transfusions opens the way for other life-saving medical procedures to be refused. Right-to-die and assisted suicide advocates (Kingdom Hall funeral) share some common arguments with the Jehovah's Witnesses. One can't help but wonder if and how often attorneys from some of these groups assisted the others with their own causes in order to help their own cause.

Another "light bulb" that finally came on during this legal study answered our decades-long curiosity as to why there were enclaves of Jehovah's Witnesses scattered around the United States who were adamant supporters of the "home birth" industry, which usually involves the services of midwives, but occasionally has also involved a few physicians. (See CALIFORNIA v. DOYLE and CALIFORNIA v. TARPENING for two MURDER convictions which involved midwives, licensed and not, who were Jehovah's Witnesses.) Now, we know why. One can only wonder how many hundreds, or possibly even thousands, of Jehovah's Witness newborn babies, who needed a blood transfusion to survive, died because their birth occurred outside a hospital setting. One can only wonder how many Jehovah's Witness families with known genetic problems, such as Rh factor incompatibility, repeatedly had baby, after baby, after baby, as those Jehovah's Witness Parents simply played a numbers game waiting for one to eventually survive. Back in the 1960s-70s, there was one African-American Jehovah's Witness Family which had had FIVE babies die at one point, yet those idiots continued to try to reproduce.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS CHILDREN & CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES

Every state within the United States of America has established special laws which protect its citizens whom are under the age of 18 from abuse and neglect committed against them by any other person. State laws protect Minors from every form of abuse -- physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, etc. State laws protect Minors from abuse committed by any other person -- natural parents, foster parents, grandparents, other relatives, or any other adult attempting to exercise authority and control over them.

Children of Jehovah's Witness Parents who have made the mistake of being baptized into the WatchTower religious cult before reaching the age of 18 years-old should always remember that they still remain under the special protection of their state's child protection laws until they become an adult. Regardless of whatever mistake -- minor or major -- that a baptized child of Jehovah's Witness Parents may have made, any punitive actions taken by their Jehovah's Witness Parents or the Congregation Elders must comply with that state's child protection laws.

It is our personal opinion that no Minor -- baptized or not -- should ever meet with any individual Congregation Elder, or group of Congregation Elders, for any reason whatsoever, unless that Minor is accompanied AT ALL TIMES during that meeting by one or both JW Parents. Do NOT assume that just because the Congregation Elders or your JW Parents tell you that they are following proper procedures -- the WatchTower Society's procedures, the Congregation's procedures, or otherwise -- that such procedures comply with your state's child protection laws. If something does not seem appropriate to you, you may wish to register your objection, refuse to speak, or under appropriate circumstances, even contact law enforcement. It is our personal opinion that if a Minor -- baptized or not -- is ever "tricked" or "intimidated" into being interrogated alone by one or more Congregation Elders, that Minor should notify Child Protective Services what happened to them as soon as possible thereafter.

It is our personal opinion that no Minor -- baptized or not -- should ever appear before a 2-Elder Congregation Investigation Committee or a 3-Elder Congregation Judicial Committee, even if accompanied by a JW Parent, until that Minor has first notified their local Child Protective Services agency of what all is happening in their life, and then, only after CPS has investigated the situation and recommended to the Minor that they appear before either the Congregation Investigation Committee or the Congregation Judicial Committee. (See RIA WILLIAMS Case.)

If a BAPTIZED MINOR is ever formally sanctioned or "shunned" in any manner whatsoever by a Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses -- "marked", "privately reproved", "publicly reproved", "disfellowshipped", or otherwise -- it is our personal opinion that that BAPTIZED MINOR should notify Child Protective Services as soon as possible. In such scenarios, older, "mature" baptized Minors may wish to consult with a CPS professional about the propriety of contacting the local news media with their story.

Child Protective Services can be contacted directly, or Minors may more conveniently speak with one of their schoolteachers, school nurses, school counselors, or other school administrator. These professionals have all been trained how to handle such an inquiry, and they will do so CONFIDENTIALLY.




ANOTHER INFORMATIVE WEBSITE
SUMMARIZING APPROXIMATELY 1500 CASES:

EMPLOYMENT ISSUES
UNIQUE TO
JEHOVAH'S WITNESS EMPLOYEES








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