Up to 9,355 minors could have been sexually abused within the German Protestant Church, according to an estimate made public Thursday during the publication of a report presented in Hanover (north) by researchers.
According to this report, 2,225 cases of sexual abuse could be counted, involving 1,259 culprits, they write, estimating that this number is only the
“tip of the iceberg”
because they were not able to study all the files. .
According to the estimate established by Harald Dressing, researcher at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim (ZI), the number of potential culprits could be as high as 3,500. Commissioned by the German Protestant Church, this report of more than 800 pages was compiled by experts from different German universities and institutes.
“The Protestant Church does less well” than the Catholic Church
According to Harald Dressing, the German Protestant Church does less well than its Catholic cousin in studying cases of sexual abuse, which itself has nevertheless been widely criticized.
“When we compare the two, the Protestant Church does less well
,” said Harald Dressing during the presentation press conference, pointing out the lack of documents provided for the study.
In the German Catholic Church, a university survey, published in 2018, revealed that 3,677 children had suffered sexual violence perpetrated by members of the clergy between 1946 and 2014. As for the Protestant Church, the real number of victims is judged higher, the authors of the report not having had access to all of the institution's archives.