Maria’s Keepers: One Woman’s Escape from the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church in South Africa by Sam Human is out this month from Penguin Random House.

Maria’s Keepers shines a light on the sordid secrets that often hide in the recesses of many censored religious movements and would-be cults.

Maria is a young woman raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in South Africa, and this book documents her experiences of gender victimisation, sexual abuse and cover-ups within the church, as well as her eventual ‘escape’ from its doctrines and control.

Maria’s freedom came at a price, however – she can never see her mother and sister again.

A worldwide, Christian-based religious group that professes an unparalleled dedication to Jehovah (God), the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a strong sense of community and appear to embrace a disciplined yet loving way of life with the promise of eternal salvation for those who follow the way of Jehovah. It is a seemingly benign religious movement, claiming to be politically neutral, racially and ethnically transcendent, with a membership of eight million people worldwide.

Yet, at its core, many former Witnesses claim that it is a fear-based doomsday cult that considers itself above all other belief systems.

Allegations of secular, cultish behaviour, homophobia, money laundering, brainwashing and countless accusations of institutionalised sexual abuse abound. It seems that membership is managed and retained mostly by way of information control and manipulation, extending to the shunning of higher education and preaching their own version of the Bible.

Entering the church is easy, but leaving it can be a matter of life or death, as Maria and countless others discovered …

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Maria's Keepers New books New releases Penguin Random House SA Sam Human