Adelyn was publicly shamed by Jehovah’s Witness elders because an adult sexually abused her
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Adelyn was brought up in the Jehovah’s Witness church.
She was sexually abused by two men in the church, but the elders pronounced that she was the ‘sinner’.
The first incident of abuse occurred when Adelyn was sent to stay with the family of one of her friends, who were church members. She was 14. During her time there, her friend’s father touched her, kissed her neck and spoke to her inappropriately.
Adelyn says she knew his behaviour ‘was not okay’ but did not feel she could tell anyone about it.
She was shocked when, a few weeks later, the abuser’s wife confronted her and accused her of trying to ‘seduce’ her husband.
Adelyn says she was portrayed as a ‘whore’. She was interviewed, alone, by male elders of the church who told her she was culpable of the accusations made. There was no independent inquiry and the abuser was not judged or questioned about his behaviour. She says ‘No one asked me what had happened to me. They listened to him as he was a male and he was an adult … I was to blame’.
Labelled a ‘sinner’, Adelyn was ostracised by other members of her community. She was repeatedly told by the elders that she was the problem. ‘I was considered to be "bad association" … someone to be avoided as people’s spirituality would be affected by my presence’ she says.
For the next few years the elders of the church ‘counselled’ Adelyn about her behaviour and her failure to repent and apologise to the abuser’s wife. She remembers not understanding the concepts she was being accused of. She says ‘I felt crushed down by it all’.
When Adelyn was in her mid teens, she made friends with a young male in the church. At the first opportunity he had, he raped her. When she did finally speak out, the young man denied what he had done and again, Adelyn was labelled ‘the sinful one’.
Adelyn was made to appear before a judicial committee, charged with ‘the gross sin of fornication’. She had to describe to three male elders in detail what had happened before the rape. The elders judged that she had willingly engaged in sexual activity, and was responsible for what subsequently happened. She was publicly reproved before the congregation.
Adelyn explains the ‘two witness rule’ that the Jehovah’s Witness church applies when it investigates cases like hers; if someone makes an accusation there have to be two ‘spiritually sound’ witnesses to the incident for them to be believed.
Adelyn strongly believes that ‘People need to hear what goes on behind the doors of these organisations’ and that robust external safeguarding procedures need to be in place. She says that many young women have suffered as she did, and she left the community as soon as she could. But, she adds, for people who have been brought up in the confines of the Jehovah’s Witness church, leaving has a huge effect on your life.
Adelyn says that the way she was treated by the church, being labelled and shunned, has affected her as much as the abuse itself. She says, ‘I disappeared down a hole of self-hatred and shame’. She adds that it has taken a long time to shake off the feeling of shame, and that she was the problem.
Adelyn’s relationship with her parents was affected by the church's judgement of her, but she says they are now more accepting of the view that the movement is archaic in its treatment of women.