A three-year investigation has concluded and has produced the results: the names of 2,225 people who were sexually abused and abused by 1,250 EMC clergy over the past decades have been confirmed.
Thousands of similar cases tells Euronews, opened in the Evangelical Church of Germany. At the same time, the actual number of victims, according to the authors of the study, in particular the head of the project, Martin Vaclavik, can reach ten thousand people – this is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The investigation was conducted for three years at several universities in Germany, commissioned by the ECG itself, which allocated more than 3.5 million euros for it. When the results were announced, ECG head Kirsten Fers said:
“As an institution, we are also guilty of countless crimes against countless people, and I can only sincerely apologize to everyone we have offended in such a way.”
The victims noted that the investigation was carried out too late, but called for continued work, including at the state level. Katharina Krach, one of the victims, says:
“The Evangelical Church has a problem with sexual abuse. We find a lot of it, but it also has a problem with the way it treats victims when they come forward.”
In 2018, researchers found more than 3,000 cases of child sexual abuse in the German Catholic Church from 1945 to 2014. After this, more than a million Germans officially left.
More Stories
A terrible tragedy in Kyrgyzstan: a truck hit 29 children at a festive event (video)
A 48-year-old Ukrainian was killed in Hungary
Paris: wild clashes between police and "black" block