News and primary-source research on the Watchtower organization
Commissioned after survivors came forward and published over the organization's court challenge, the 2020 Utrecht University study documented 751 abuse reports and found the Witnesses' internal handling favored the community, not the victim.
In the Padron case, an appeals court upheld daily discovery sanctions against the Watchtower over its refusal to produce responses to a 1997 abuse-reporting letter — and held it couldn't object to a penalty it had once sought itself.
A former member sought to sue the organization on behalf of Quebecers abused as children in its congregations, alleging a "culture of silence." A court authorized the class action in 2019.
The "Palmer Leaks" — 33 confidential documents published by the transparency site FaithLeaks — detailed how Jehovah's Witnesses elders and headquarters handled abuse allegations inside one congregation.
A 2017 Charity Commission inquiry into the Manchester New Moston congregation found trustees mishandled abuse allegations — including an internal hearing where victims were questioned by the man they accused.
The Court of Appeal refused to quash the Charity Commission's inquiry into how the Jehovah's Witnesses' British charity handles abuse allegations — the next-to-last round of a fight the Watch Tower would ultimately lose.
In July 2015 an Australian Royal Commission opened public hearings into the Jehovah's Witnesses — and revealed that the organization's own files documented 1,006 alleged abusers since 1950, not one reported by the church to police.
A 2012 jury delivered a landmark verdict against the Watchtower for a woman abused as a child. In 2015 an appeals court affirmed the organization's negligence but erased the punitive damages — and rejected a duty to warn the congregation.
In 2014 a judge entered a default judgment against the organization for refusing to hand over its internal child-abuse files. An appeals court reversed it in 2016 — but the fight over those records would recur for years.
In December 2014 the High Court declined Watch Tower's bid to halt the Charity Commission inquiry, ruling only that the charity had to use the specialist tribunal first — not that the inquiry was lawful.
In May 2014 the Charity Commission launched a statutory inquiry into how the Watch Tower's British arm handles child protection — the start of a legal fight that would run for nearly a decade.
A 2018 Montana jury ordered the Watchtower to pay about $35 million for failing to report a child's abuse. In 2020 the state's Supreme Court erased the verdict — unanimously — not on the facts, but on a clergy-confidentiality exception in the reporting law. The collision it turned on is still unresolved across the country.
In 2015 a national inquiry examined how the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Australia responded to child sexual abuse. Its records showed 1,006 alleged perpetrators since 1950 — none reported by the organization to police.