Jehovah's Witnesses' Scripturally Based Position on Child Protection (cpt-E 12/20), “Jehovah's Witnesses' Scripturally Based Position on Child Protection”
“When elders learn of an accusation of child abuse, they immediately consult with the branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses to ensure compliance with child abuse reporting laws. (Romans 13:1) Even if the elders have no legal duty to report an accusation to the authorities, the branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses will instruct the elders to report the matter if a minor is still in danger of abuse or there is some other valid reason.”
Paragraph 5 of the December 2020 edition, produced to the NZ inquiry. Useful for showing the wording of the policy as it stood in 2020-2021, side by side with the 2025 edition.
Official source (opens in new tab) Scan of original (opens in new tab)
Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses' Scripturally Based Position on Child Protection (cpt-E 12/20), Jehovah's Witnesses' Scripturally Based Position on Child Protection
Confidence note. Downloaded and text-extracted the NZ-hosted PDF; quotation verbatim.
Scan provenance. New Zealand Abuse in Care Royal Commission evidence library (public record). Document ID JHV0000010; print code 'cpt-E 12/20'.
Corroborated by. src-cpt-2025-0900-child-protection-position
Notes. The NZ case study that received this document was later declared unlawful for exceeding the inquiry's terms of reference ([2026] NZHC 1295); that ruling concerns the Commission's findings, not the authenticity of documents the organisation itself produced.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-cpt-2020-1200-child-protection-position-nz