After reports of attacks on children and young people, the SOS Children’s Village Association set up an independent commission of inquiry.
Munich – Following reports of attacks on children and young people, the SOS Children’s Villages Association set up an independent commission of inquiry.
According to the association on Friday, she is tasked with “evaluating and processing all measures taken by SOS Children’s Villages in dealing with educational misconduct in the past and present”. Within two years, it should be investigated whether there were or still are structures in the association that made pedagogical misconduct possible.
“Climate of Fear”
At the beginning of October 2021, the association published a study by the renowned abuse expert Heiner Keupp. This shows that two former employees of a children’s village in Bavaria caused “suffering” to the children entrusted to them. There is talk of a “climate of fear” and “crossing borders”. Former residents accuse the two women of having committed “child-threatening border crossings” from the early 2000s to around 2015.
The specific allegations are said to be about showering together or hygiene measures that violate the children’s shame. In addition, a five-year-old girl was said to have been locked up alone in a dark cellar, and a boy had to sleep in slippers because his village mother had taped them to his feet. Since then, according to a spokesman for the association, other alleged victims have reported that they have experienced injustice in an SOS Children’s Village.
SOS Children’s Villages is home to 65,000 children in 137 countries and supports another 347,000 people with social programs. According to the latest annual report, income from donations and state aid amounted to 1.4 billion euros in 2019. dpa
