A few years ago, Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began looking into the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was a religious group with a history of abuse and a cover-up mentality. The final report of their findings concluded that kids were not “adequately protected from the risk of sexual abuse” within the organization.

I wrote more about the findings here, but YouTuber TheraminTrees just released a lengthy explanation of some of the testimony that was heard. It is a damning story that shows you just how far the Witnesses went to hide the scandal and pressure a victim from speaking out.

Keep this in mind when you hear about religious abuse. It’s not just the Catholic Church. It goes beyond evangelical megachurches that blame victims for “tempting” men in power. It happens in other faiths, too. And the fear of upsetting God or Jehovah or whomever takes on added weight in that religious context, which is why we can’t trust those organizations to police themselves.

