The public prosecutor’s office in Groningen in the Netherlands has applied for a six-year prison sentence against Jan Willem M. (54), a former preacher of the KSB congregation in Middelstum, NL. The man is alleged to have forced a young woman to have sex in the closed religious community Kwa Sizabantu for years.
“These are outright lies,” the man from Middelstum defended himself in court in Groningen on Tuesday. “I knew that it was against the values and norms of my faith, that I was sinful. But I never asserted my will.” According to the court, the man was a central figure in the Dutch branch of Kwa Sizabantu (KSB), a South African missionary movement that gained a foothold in Middelstum, among other places, at the turn of the millennium. At its peak, the KSB had around 3,000 addresses in the Netherlands. In recent years, however, the community has come under heavy criticism from former members who have labelled the faith a cult in which people are brainwashed.
For years, KSB followed a strict line and preached the idea that people were sinful by nature. Sex before marriage was strictly taboo and adultery was forbidden. Any form of sin could only be discussed with a ‘counsellor’. These counsellors were often preachers who could bring the faithful to purity. Believers who broke with KSB explained that these counsellors held them in an oppressive grip because they knew everything about them. Members who wanted to leave were allegedly blackmailed with incriminating information from conversations with counsellors. The Dutch administration of KSB has since been dissolved. The founder Erlo Stegen from South Africa died last year at the age of 88.
The 54-year-old Middelstummer spoke at meetings where young people were encouraged to postpone sex until after marriage. These events were called ‘True Love Waits’. Despite this, he had an affair with the woman, who was not married at the time. The victim was introduced to the KSB faith through her parents from the age of six and ten years later moved in temporarily with the preacher from Middelstum and his wife . The man quickly developed feelings for the girl, who was still a minor at the time.
When she officially became an adult, a sexual relationship developed between the two. “It was a double life,” the preacher describes his life between 2000 and 2010. “There was always an inner voice that said: you live in a different world, but I didn’t want to give up my job and my family. I thought that there would be a moment when God would give us each other.”
After years under the rule of the KSB, the woman left the community and went to Israel, where she married her current partner. In 2017, she filed a complaint after confiding in her husband. She explained that she could not resist the KSB preacher. She did not attend the court hearing for fear of the Middelstummer. Another person read her statement to the judges.
“I wanted to lead my life in the service of God. Every mistake led to damnation in the KSB. I always felt guilt, which could only be taken away by talking to the accused. That was the only way to forgiveness, which made me not an adult but an addict. I was only allowed to talk to the man who raped me.”
The woman and her partner confronted the KSB management, who closed the doors both internationally and in the Netherlands and explained that God had already moved on to forgiveness. The woman’s partner then decided to secretly record a conversation with the preacher, in which he admitted that there was an imbalance of power. “I should have been the wiser one,” he said in the conversation. On Tuesday, however, he denied that he had been the woman’s permanent counsellor.
The case dragged on for seven years, as the Ministry of Justice was forced by the Court of Appeal in 2020 to prosecute the preacher after all at the woman’s insistence. A new investigation was then launched. Despite the public prosecutor’s earlier intention to drop the case, the prosecutor now considers the woman’s testimony to be credible. “She always explains herself at length and in detail, and always in the same way. Her story is also supported by the testimony of other people involved.”
The public prosecutor is demanding six years in prison for years of abuse. “The defendant should have protected the plaintiff, given his role as a self-appointed foster father and counsellor. But he used his position differently, at the expense of the victim. He accepts no responsibility for this. I take great offence at that.”
The Middelstumm preacher and his lawyer plead a relationship of mutual consent. According to her, the preacher was not a central figure, but only carried out administrative tasks at the KSB, and the woman could therefore have easily left the community. She demands complete acquittal.
Kwa Sizabantu no longer exists in the Netherlands. The accused preacher continues to speak regularly in Middelstum in a new community.
Sander Dekker, drimble nl. 16 July 2024