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White Ring: State aid for victims of violence does not arrive
Jörg Ziercke, Federal Chairman of the White Ring, criticizes the bureaucratic hurdles for victims of violence in Germany. photo
© Christoph Soeder/WEISSER RING e. v./obs
In the opinion of Weißer Ring, the state is not keeping its promise of help given with the right to compensation for victims. Too few applications would be approved – but also few made.
According to Weißer Ring, victims of violence far too seldom receive the statutory help from the state. “The bureaucracy more and more often leaves people who are in need through no fault of their own helpless,” said the national chairman of the aid organization for crime victims and former president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Jörg Ziercke, the German Press Agency in Mainz.
According to a survey by the organization, almost every second application for support under the Victim Compensation Act was rejected nationwide in 2021 (46.6 percent). “This is the worst value for more than 20 years,” reported the White Ring. Only 27.6 percent of applications were approved last year. This rate was only slightly lower in 2019 at 26.2 percent.
The other applications that were not rejected (25.8 percent) did not receive any help either, but were discontinued in 2021 “for other reasons”. According to the Weißer Ring, reasons for this were, for example, the withdrawal of the application, the death of an applicant or the transfer of the case to another federal state. “I am firmly convinced that behind this there are mostly cases in which victims of violence have withdrawn their applications – because they are worn down by the bureaucracy and the long procedures,” said Ziercke. Why victims withdraw their applications is not recorded uniformly nationwide.
Proposals do not reflect number of violent crimes
However, the victim compensation law is also largely unknown and far too few victims filed an application at all. Around 15,000 applications for compensation were made last year. In relation to this, the White Ring refers to around 165,000 acts of violence recorded in the police crime statistics. This quota – the ratio of applications made to registered acts of violence – has been between nine and eleven percent for more than 20 years.
Ziercke called for a culture change in the responsible pension offices. “The authorities have to check for recognition, not rejection,” said Ziercke. “In Germany, the guiding principle must apply: When in doubt, for the victim!” With the Victim Compensation Act, the state undertakes to support victims of violent crimes such as physical injury, domestic violence or sexual abuse. They should be protected from health and economic disadvantages as a result of the crime. The state should take over costs for medical treatments or pension payments.