An average of 48 children are victims of sexual violence every day in Germany.

Holger Münch, Head of the German Federal Criminal Police Office, and Kerstin Claus, Independent Federal Government Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues, announced the 2022 police report on the number of child victims of sexual violence at a press conference In Berlin.

Münch stated that the number of children killed in 2022 decreased by 30 percent compared to the previous year, and that 101 children were killed last year, with most of these children under the age of 6.

Noting that the number of children exposed to sexual violence is at a high level, Münch stated that the number of children who were victims of sexual violence, which was 17,704 in 2021, decreased slightly in 2022 to 17,437. .

“WE NEED A LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND AUTHORITY”

“An average of 48 children are victims of sexual violence every day in Germany,” Münch said.
Holger Münch also pointed out that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases in the field of the production, possession and dissemination of child abuse images, stating that the police detected 42,075 crimes in this regard in 2022, which corresponds to an increase of 7.4 percent compared to 2021.

Emphasizing that measures must be taken to combat violence against children, Münch said: “Stopping violence against children and ending sexual abuse is our top priority. But we need the appropriate legal framework and the necessary mandates for the investigations to be successful.”

Expressing that they lack an important tool in this regard, Münch requested that the IP addresses of computers be recorded in the fight against child sexual abuse.
BKA President Münch explained that 10,000 reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US were not investigated because their IP addresses were not recorded and the perpetrators could not be identified.

UPLOAD IMAGES OF ABUSE

Kerstin Claus also pointed out that the number of abuse images shared on the Internet has increased, saying: “We need to focus more on digital violence on the Internet.”

Claus warned that attention should be paid to content shared by children, stating that children are not aware of the problem here.

Claus, who wanted to increase the measures for the protection of children in the digital sphere, emphasized that a legal regulation must be made in this direction.

Claus stated that the actual size of the number of children exposed to sexual violence in Germany is unknown despite the current numbers announced, and called for the establishment of a center to conduct research on this topic. (AA)