Barbara Anderson was a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses from 1954 to 1997. Working at the Watchtower’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband Joe from 1982 to 1992, she researched and wrote articles for the Awake! magazine, as well as researched the movement’s official history published in 1993 as “Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom”.
Barbara Anderson has a massive collection of documents, letters, and books representing nearly every decade since the 1830s. Her collection includes many old and long out-of-print volumes written by both supporters and critics of the Watch Tower Society and its founders.
Barbara’s discoveries at Bethel and her extensive research on issues related to child sexual abuse in the religion lead to her becoming an outspoken critic of the Jehovah’s Witnesses sexual abuse policies on major TV and radio programs.
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- 8 dead. What’s wrong in the JW community?
- 5 more Jehovah’s Witnesses charged with sexually abusing children are arrested in Pennsylvania
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- 8 dead. What’s wrong in the JW community?
Officers of the peace are reported to have found people with gunshot wounds on the ground floor, and heard a shot from an upper floor and found a fatally wounded person upstairs who has been assumed to be the shooter. Police did […] - 5 more Jehovah’s Witnesses charged with sexually abusing children are arrested in Pennsylvania
Acting Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced sexual abuse charges against five members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, while four other Jehovah’s Witnesses were charged for similar acts in October 2022 by former Attorney General now-Governor Josh Shapiro. Read the press release for […] - Washington lawmakers propose bill requiring clergy to report child abuse
“Senate Bill 5280, and its companion bill in the state House (HB 1098), would make it illegal for clergy not to report sexual abuse allegations to authorities unless the information came in the form of a confession,” explains Wilson Criscione reporting for […] - Norway’s decision to deny Jehovah’s Witnesses state support subsidies as a religious community
The Religious Communities Act is essentially a subsidy act where the financial subsidy for Jehovah’s Witnesses’ 12,686 members last year amounted to approximately NOK 16 million. Under the Religious Communities Act, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are no longer a legally registered community in […] - Shocking Murder-Suicide at Kingdom Hall in Colorado
Christmas morning was shocking in this typically quiet suburban Denver, Colorado neighborhood. A former Jehovah’s witness man shot and killed his wife then killed himself on Christmas at the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall in Thornton, Colorado, police said. The “Adams County Sheriff’s […] - Eight victims listed in sexual assault on a child case against Jehovah’s Witness elder
Colorado’s Teller County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of Shawn Lance Swisher on Tuesday, a 60-year-old Jehovah’s Witness man, an elder, who is suspected of sexually assaulting a child in the Woodland Park area. “An arrest affidavit for a Florissant man arrested […] - Reactions to Jehovah’s Witnesses at Disney, otherwise known as the happiest place on earth
In California, the Watchtower’s Jehovah’s Witnesses are allowed to set up their ‘witnessing’ tables with absolutely nothing Disney can do about it due to Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, a 1980 Supreme Court case that found that discriminately preventing public campaigning or proselytizing at […] - Pennsylvania & Norway news updates
Stephen Unthank dives into an interview with the popular exJW YouTuber who goes by the alias ‘Goatlike Personality’ covering recent news updates from the case in Pennsylvania with recently elected Governor and former Attorney General Josh Shapiro, as well as what’s going […] - Norway update from OSCE delegate post-2022 conference
Re: Norway and the Watchtower’s new European “Freedom of Worship Office” This opening of this new ‘office’ in Europe appears to be the Watchtower’s answer to being exposed as a worldwide anti-human rights organization at the 2022 OSCE human rights conference in Warsaw, […] - Tokyo woman and rapper confront the need for Jehovah’s Witness children to be able to communicate religious harm, asks for government cooperation
“…children find themselves in dire situations where it is virtually impossible to speak their minds…” iidabii, Japanese rapper uses words to cure ills of abusive religious upbringing, as former Jehovah’s Witness—Mainichi Lloyd Barry, now deceased, served as a missionary in Japan for […] - Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announces charges against four Jehovah’s Witnesses for sexual abuse of minors
All of the defendants’ victims were minors, as well as members of Jehovah’s Witness congregations. “These cases are disturbing, the allegations hard to imagine, and all share one common tie – the 19 victims and the four men who are being charged […] - Six Screens covers OSCEHear Barbara Anderson tell the story about how Yergali Abishev ended up an activist for human rights.
- “Anyone who works with children and does not report child sexual abuse should be prosecuted”
Former prime minister Theresa May told BBC News she had “no idea” of the scale of child abuse when she set up the inquiry in 2015. The public inquiry was given a broad remit to investigate historical allegations of child abuse, dating […] - How Washington State Law Lets Clergy Hide Child Sexual Abuse
In Washington, clergy — unlike teachers, physicians, and law enforcement — are not listed as mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect. In 1975, Washington lawmakers removed clergy members from its mandatory reporter list leaving the state with one of the nation’s […] - Video to watch the OSCE Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, in English or Russian
- OSCE 2022 Update: Governing Body Listens & Leaves
“Yes, I saw [Geoffrey] Jackson at the plenary. He entered the hall 5 minutes before my speech. He did not speak, and immediately after my speech, he disappeared. I really wanted to take a picture with him, since he most likely did […] - Raising Funds to Send Delegate to OSCEWe will share reporting from WatchtowerDocuments.org after the #OSCE event provided by Yergali Abishev, your special delegate sent to Warsaw, Poland with the support of your generous donation. “In 2019, it became known that Jehovah’s Witnesses are using the political platform of […]
- Stopping Abuse Is Sexual Ethics 101
As the abuse crisis roils American evangelicalism, leaders are finally paying attention, if only because the accretion of cases is now impossible to ignore. Christians should not complain about the sexualization of culture while simultaneously ignoring the sexualization of women inside the […] - Jehovah’s Witness facing more than 50 sexual assault-related charges
Senior Jehovah’s Witnesses member charged with rape, torture and assault of teenage boys, the headline reads. Detectives fear there could be more victims and are urging anyone with information to come forward. View full news coverage The man, who cannot be named […] - Over 1,000 charities combine in one of the world’s largest mergers ever —so-called charities merge and disappear from the accountability logs…
More than 1,000 charities have unified in one of the largest voluntary sector mergers in history. Earlier this year, 1,279 Jehovah’s Witness congregations merged into national charity the Kingdom Hall Trust. Charity Commission records show this is by far the largest merger […] - 💜 A Message of love and support to our brave and courageous 🇺🇦 Ukrainian friends & family, from Barbara Anderson
Worldwide activist and Watchtower archivist Barbara Anderson shares a message from the exJW community supporting our friends and family in Ukraine. - Margaret Keane, artist, former Jehovah’s Witness, and paradise
Peggy Doris Hawkins, better known to ‘the world’ as Margaret Keane, died from heart failure on June 26, 2022. Born September 15, 1927, this amazing and inspiring woman now rests in peace and paradise. The extraordinary story of Ms. Keane, who became […] - Local Jehovah’s Witness Child Molester Goes on to Attend Insurrection
Reporting by Amanda Gailey, SeeingRedNebraska.com Court documents show that elders at Crowl’s church–The Belmont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Lincoln–had “investigated” the abuse claim in 2013, just to see if Crowl was in need of spiritual assistance. According to the documents, one […] - 2002 Dateline Exposé
Watch as Barbara begins the crusade against the Watchtower as Dateline reporters clearly demonstrate how Jehovah’s Witness child molesters and pedophiles continue to attend meetings and participate in the door-to-door preaching work in your community. They are not only allowed—but even encouraged […]