‘Say Sorry’ shines a light on, and holds to account, the Watch Tower Society and those leaders within the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization that disregard or violate the laws of the land, or that cause religious harm to sections of the community.

Accountability and change has been achieved by the Say Sorry Team through a range of activities including: awareness, education, campaigns, public speaking, conferences, submissions to parliamentary inquiries, assisting with the Australian Child Abuse Royal Commission, working with governmental and statutory authorities, advising law enforcement agencies, lobbying, legal action, and prosecutions.

For the past 12 years the team behind ‘Say Sorry’ have provided up-to-date factual and unique content to international law enforcement agencies, government departments, politicians, inquiries, royal commissions, law firms, and the media. We also provide non-legal advice for investigations, civil lawsuits, and prosecutions involving the Watch Tower Society and the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The ‘Say Sorry’ website was re-launched on 26 July 2018 to highlight our current work and to provide an information and news platform for those concerned about the activities of the Watch Tower Society and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The sole owner and administrator of the website is Steven Unthank.

Contact details

Say Sorry can be contacted via the JW News Facebook page in the side bar >>>.

Australian Child Abuse Royal Commission

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse stated in its Final Report, published in December 2017, that the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia had a reported 1,800 child sexual abuse victim files[1] within a membership of 68,000. By contrast, the Catholic Church in Australia had a reported 4,444 child sexual abuse victim files[2] within a membership of 5.3 million.

The British Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse stated in its Truth Project Thematic report (May 2019) on page 25 that “out of the sample of 1,697 participants, 133 reported that sexual abuse took place within a religious institution. In these cases, Church of England (28%) and Catholic institutions (25%) were most commonly cited, with Jehovah’s Witnesses (11%) the third most frequent.”[3]

It is also our hope that one day the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses will “say sorry” by acknowledge their errors and by adopting a culture of acting lawfully, ethically and in a socially responsible manner.

FOOTNOTES

[1] https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-29-jehovahs-witnesses

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/child-sex-abuse-royal-commission:-data-reveals-catholic-abuse/8243890

[3] https://www.iicsa.org.uk/document/truth-project-thematic-report-child-sexual-abuse-context-religious-institutions

Image: The crushing evidence of the Final Report of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and Case Study 29 into Jehovah’s Witnesses (second volume from top), sitting on the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures outside Parliament House, Canberra. Image copyright 2018 by SaySorry.org