Jehovah's Witnesses: Internal judicial process 'catastrophic' for members alleging child sex abuse

Mélanie Poirier and her father, Benoit

Mélanie Poirier was 10 when she started taking piano lessons and it would prove to be an experience that changed her life forever. At that very first lesson, she said, her piano teacher sexually assaulted her. It went on for five years.

"Week after week, at every piano lesson, he would masturbate in front of me. And he would ask me to touch him," Poirier told Radio-Canada's investigative program, Enquête.

Her father, Benoît Poirier, was in the next room waiting for her lesson to be over, completely unaware, she said.

Poirier said she couldn't tell her father, who was a Jehovah's Witness elder, or anyone else what was happening because her piano teacher was also an elder in the congregation that her family belonged to in a Montreal suburb.

"He was well-known, an elder, an example to follow," she said.

The biggest obstacle, however, was the fact she didn't have a second witness to the alleged abuse — a key requirement of the church's internal judicial system.

"If I told anyone, nothing would have happened. I wouldn't be believed. The elders wouldn't have even stopped to listen to me," Poirier said.

The Poiriers are among several former Jehovah's Witnesses in Quebec and the United States who spoke to Enquête about the church's policies for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse and their failure to protect victims.  (more...)

Jehovah's Witnesses: Internal judicial process 'catastrophic' for members alleging child sex abuse

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