threadcount / messages on zero

[Masuramea]

Hello everyone!

Let me get straight to the question.
We have about 8 forums which are not password protected, everyone is free to join the discussion and talk about the topics related.

However we're having 3 password protected forums so we can invite the people who might be interested in the subjects in it.
There is one 'problem', on the password protected forums the threadcount and messages remain 0 eventhough there has been lots of replies.
I can understand this to be a security matter of some sort, but we'd really like to show.

The reason is not to bully them but
1) not letting people think that if they are invited, they'll get 0 response.
2) making people curious what is happening in those forums.

I've been looking but is there a simple way of putting it on/off?

Thanks in advance!

-Masuramea