The key points The independent report was commissioned by the Evangelical Church in 2020 and covers abuse since 1946. The number of victims (2225) and perpetrators of violence (1259) drops only for cases with complete documentation. The accused are mainly parish priests and pastors
Listen to the audio version of the article
The first independent report on sexual abuse in the Evangelical Church in Germany, and its 20 regional churches, revealed today a number of 2,225 children and young people victims, three times higher than the 858 people affected and disclosed so far, and a total of 1,259 suspected authors since 1946: the revelations, presented at the University of Hannover, were defined as “the tip of the iceberg” by those responsible for the research. Extrapolating the data from all the documentation collected, including that which contains incomplete information, the number of victims rises to 9,355 while those accused of the violence, mainly parish priests and shepherds, rise to 3,497 of which 1,402 parishioners.
The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) commented on the results yesterday: «The high number of cases that researchers have collected on a scientific basis is shocking. Behind every case there is injustice and suffering. At the same time, however, we know that there are a large number of unreported cases of sexual violence and also cases that have ended up in files or documents, but are not included in the total number of cases.”
“As the EKD we take responsibility for ensuring that the results are translated into concrete measures,” said interim chairwoman of the EKD board Kirsten Fehrs in Hanover today. “As an institution, we are guilty of harming countless people. And I can only apologize from the bottom of my heart to those who were hurt,” Fehrs continued.
The study, which cost the Protestant Church 3.6 million euros, was developed over three years by the independent research network ForuM and was commissioned ten years after the outbreak of a major scandal dating back to 2010. It is the first time that an independent research group is dealing with the topic of sexual violence in the German Protestant Church.
ForuM includes researchers from various scientific disciplines: social services, history, pedagogy, psychology, sociology, forensic psychiatry, sexual sciences, criminology.