enlightenment
Portal for victims of abuse – The silence is broken
Those affected by child sexual abuse should be given more voice. (Symbolic image) photo
© Annette Riedl/dpa
The Independent Commission for Dealing with Child Sexual Abuse has set up a portal with the stories of those affected. It’s not just about individual fates. Society should listen.
Katharina was seven years old when she was Teacher kept her there after class. She was something very special, the man told her. Then it started. “The teacher started touching my private parts and enjoying it.” This is what the woman told the Independent Commission for the Investigation of Child Sexual Abuse decades later.
Katharina’s story is one of more than 100 that the commission has now published on its own portal – one of the central projects from 2019 to 2023, on which the committee has now taken stock. One in seven adults has experienced abuse, according to the commission. The committee founded in 2016 is tasked with listening to those affected and providing help. Around 2,600 people confided in him by the end of 2023. Above all, however, it is about pointing out the conditions that encourage abuse and taking countermeasures and breaking down the silence and cover-up.
Hope for a “social learning process”
“We listen and we convey recognition for the injustice that has occurred,” said Commissioner Barbara Kavemann when presenting the activity report. “There is an explicit expectation on the part of those affected that they will contribute to a social learning process and to social change if they make the effort and make their life stories public.” They are also concerned with better protection for children and young people today and in the future.
From the Commission’s point of view, a lot has changed in recent years, for example when it comes to the issue of abuse in sport. A “Safe Sport” center is currently being developed with the participation of the Athletes Germany Association. The commission also sees progress in dealing with abuse in pedosexual networks. However, from the committee’s point of view, the schools are lagging behind. “We very much regret that so far there has been no evidence of any activity by those responsible in this area to address the issue in schools,” said Kavemann. “The education administration could act as a role model for the state.”
School can also be a safe space
Schools are not just crime scenes, for example when teachers and carers abuse boys or girls. Schools could also be protective spaces, the commission learned. A woman named Johanna told the professional audience that she was abused at home, first by her grandfather and later by her father.
When she told her mother about her grandfather’s sexual violence, she knew immediately – from her own experience. However, the mother did not want to hear about the abuse of her daughter by her own husband. It was only at school that Johanna found her voice heard. “I kept thinking, couldn’t concentrate on the lesson and stared out the window,” she says on the commission’s portal. “My teacher spoke to me and I told her about my grandfather’s abuse. I was given a place to retreat. I was able to lie down in a room and recharge my batteries.”
The experience of those affected helps to understand why sexual violence can happen and why no one intervenes, said Commissioner Stephan Rixen. The commission itself is necessary as a motor so that the issue of reappraisal remains present – “because we are, if I may put it that way, a kind of productive disruptive factor, a kind of critical abutment,” said Rixen. “We are also noticing that there is still resistance in some areas of society and that there is also resistance to this difficult issue.” The commission is not a public prosecutor’s office or an investigative committee, but has “communicative power”.
“The reappraisal is not over”
The work is having an impact, said former PDS MP Angela Marquardt, who sits on the advisory board for those affected. For example, after a hearing on abuse in sport, a network of those affected was created. “These are the more recent cases, these are the cases of today,” said Marquardt. There are now two contact points. “And I can tell you that calls come in almost every day.” In institutions such as in sport, awareness has changed. This leads to debates, but it also gives those affected the courage to contact the authorities. But that also means: “We are of course getting more and more cases these days.”
Coming to terms with it remains an ongoing issue, said Sabine Bergmann, who was appointed abuse commissioner by the federal government in 2010 and resigned as a member of the Independent Commission at the end of 2023. “A lot has happened during this time, but it’s not over either. Reappraisal is not over.” The commission’s work was most recently extended until the end of 2025 and should be legally secured so that it can continue indefinitely.
The commission needs more rights to provide information, and at the same time the topic and protection concepts need to be anchored even more firmly in society, said Bergmann. “My nightmare is always that in 30 years an independent representative will sit there again and hold a hearing with 50-year-olds (with experience of abuse).”