En octobre 2016, la Commission royale australienne a conclu que l'évitement est 'une composante indissociable de la réponse institutionnelle aux abus sexuels sur enfant', que cette pratique 'risque très concrètement de placer un survivant dans la position intenable' de devoir choisir entre partager une communauté avec son agresseur et perdre cette communauté, et qu'elle 'rend extrêmement difficile pour une personne le fait de partir' ; elle a rangé cette règle parmi les pratiques problématiques de l'organisation. Geoffrey Jackson, membre du Collège central, avait témoigné que le départ pouvait être 'personnellement dévastateur'.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Australia), Report of Case Study No. 29: The response of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd to allegations of child sexual abuse, “Section 7.7 Shunning; summary of problematic policies (p. 13)”

octobre 2016 · pp.13, 70-72 · section 7.7; endnotes 618-636 · Commonwealth of Australia (ISBN 978-1-925289-89-3, CC BY 3.0 AU)

“The Jehovah’s Witness organisation’s practice of shunning members who disassociate from the organisation has the very real potential of putting a survivor in the untenable position of having to choose between constant re-traumatisation at having to share a community with their abuser and losing that entire community altogether.”

Also: 'Even family members are instructed not to associate with a disfellowshipped or disassociated relative unless the association is unavoidable'; 'the practice of shunning is an inextricable component of the institutional response to child sexual abuse'; the organisation's submission that shunning was outside the terms of reference was rejected; Governing Body member Geoffrey Jackson's evidence (14 Aug 2015) that leaving can be 'personally devastating because [a person] can lose their whole social network and their families'; p. 13 lists 'the organisation has a policy and practice of shunning those who wish to leave the organisation' among problematic policies.

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