Let victims speak, German child abuse inquiry says
A girl on an East German cooperative farm beaten by her father, then raped and traded for sex by her brother. An emotionally troubled boy undressed in "counseling sessions" by a priest at his boarding school. A swimmer abused by his instructor.
These are just three of hundreds of stories revealed by Germany's Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which issued an interim report on Wednesday after three years' work.
The 350-page report, based on testimony from 1,690 people, called for an end to taboos around discussing abuse, so people who had been failed as children should not suffer in adulthood. But inquiry chair Sabine Andresen, an education professor, warned the inquiry had more to do, with the disabled and children in competitive sport being vulnerable groups the inquiry had not yet reached.
Whether because of their identification with a sport, or their successes in it, such children were often reluctant to come forward, her colleague Brigitte Tillmann said. Abuse was often hereditary, the inquiry found, with family memories of war or Nazi crimes often at the root of abuse generations later.
Recommendations to the government centred on building support networks for victims to share stories and letting them pay for therapy with health insurance.
