After several years of research, scientists are presenting a study on the abuse of children and young people among Protestants. Which church structures encourage attacks?
The first comprehensive study on sexual violence in the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and in the Diakonie will be presented today in Hanover. Figures on the frequency of abuse of children and young people with church employees as perpetrators are eagerly awaited. For this purpose, the regional churches and the Diakonie made files available to the research association. As was previously known, however, the scientists were not able to evaluate the personal files of all pastors and deacons, but primarily disciplinary files.
The number of cases is not directly comparable with the results of the so-called MHG study on sexual violence in the Catholic Church, which was published in 2018. After evaluating almost 40,000 personnel files from the period between 1945 and 2014, 1,670 Catholic priests and deacons were accused, to whom 3,677 children and young people could be assigned as those affected. The scientists emphasized at the time that this number was “a lower estimate.”
Unlike the MHG study, the forum study takes into account all those working in Protestant life, including, for example, home educators, church musicians or volunteer youth leaders. “We are talking about a bright field and we are also talking about a large dark field,” said an EKD spokesman. The number of cases would change. “We also expect that more affected people will come forward after the study is published.”
Criticism: Church could have done more to come to terms with it earlier
From the perspective of critics, the Protestant Church could have done more to address sexual violence in the past. “What is needed is an ombudsman’s office for those affected that is independent of the church,” said Katharina Kracht, who was severely sexually abused by a Protestant pastor in Nenndorf near Hamburg in Lower Saxony in the 1980s and 1990s. As it only later emerged, the pastor, who died in 2013, had abused other girls both in Nenndorf and in his previous parish in Wolfsburg.
As a child, Detlev Zander experienced sexual violence for years in a children’s home run by the Korntal Evangelical Brethren Community in Baden-Württemberg. He is the spokesperson for those affected by the EKD’s Sexual Violence Participation Forum, in which those affected and church representatives sit. It is crucial that the regional churches and the EKD implement the recommendations of the forum study, said Zander. “This includes properly compensating those affected and not fobbing them off.”
Those affected by sexual violence can currently apply for individual voluntary benefits. According to the EKD, these are based on compensation for pain and suffering and are usually between 5,000 and 50,000 euros. By the end of 2022, the regional churches of the EKD had reported 858 applications for such recognition services.
The EKD initiated the forum study in 2020. The research goal was to analyze typical Protestant structures that promote violence and abuse of power. The study was financed with funds from the EKD and regional churches amounting to 3.6 million euros. As an umbrella organization of 20 regional churches, the EKD represents 19.2 million Protestant Christians nationwide.
Source: Stern
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