Griss will examine SOS Children's Village structures after allegations

"One must work thoroughly," said Irmgard Griss on Tuesday in the "Ö1-Mittagsjournal". She wants to focus on the entire period of the allegations. The investigation will therefore "take some time".

Griss: SOS Children's Village very interested in "clearing the air"

She hopes that the commission can contribute to "ensuring that such things can be excluded in the future [...] and that children no longer have to experience such terrible things," said Griss. The organization is very interested in "clearing the air," Griss said regarding talks with representatives of SOS Children's Village. Griss stated on Tuesday that the supervisory board must also ask itself: "Did we overlook something?". No one can be "excluded" from responsibility, said Griss. It must also be considered where the situation of village mothers can be improved. "The structures most likely need to be changed and new guarantees implemented" to prevent abuse.

Carinthian SOS Children's Village location affected

Supervisory board member Willibald Cernko and managing director Annemarie Schlack announced on Monday that Griss would take over the leadership of the reform commission tasked with addressing allegations against SOS Children's Village. In addition to Griss, the commission includes the head of the child protection organization "möwe" Hedwig Wölfl, social worker Veronika Reidinger from the Ilse Arlt Institute for Social Inclusion Research at FH St. Pölten, as well as three members of the supervisory board. According to a "Falter" report, children and adolescents were allegedly mistreated, locked up, and photographed naked over the years. The information from the weekly newspaper comes from a study commissioned by SOS Children's Village itself but never made public. The allegations in Carinthia relate to the period from 2008 to 2020.

Allegations regarding the SOS Children's Village location in Imst, Tyrol, internal report apparently available

In Tyrol, there were reportedly five cases of abuse between 2017 and 2020. The allegations concerned the location in Imst in the Oberland. "Five cases of suspected child welfare endangerment" were reported to the child and youth welfare service, the organization explained to the APA last Friday. There were "cases of physical and psychological violence and leadership errors," SOS Children's Village admitted. Details could not be provided for reasons of victim protection and data protection. Four of the cases were reported to the child and youth welfare service at the end of November 2021, and the fifth case in August 2022. The Innsbruck public prosecutor's office is currently examining a possible initial suspicion. In the past, nothing had been pending with the prosecution authority in this matter.

The online edition of the "Tiroler Tageszeitung" reported on Tuesday evening about an internal study commissioned by the children's village but not yet published, conducted by the Institute for Men's and Gender Research "to accompany the SOS Children's Village West in dealing with institutional dynamics in handling different forms of violence in the Imst children's village," as it was stated. According to the authors, the report was triggered by an incident at the Imst location that revealed "verbally unacceptable pedagogical misconduct" by a management person and led to their immediate dismissal following its disclosure.

Indications of grievances in Imst suggested a climate of intimidation, silence, and fear, according to the report in the analysis. The violence was directed against employees in the form of verbal, psychological, structural, and sexualized violence. It occurred due to negligent behavior by leaders, but also from the children and adolescents in the children's village. Employees were affected by abuse of power by superiors. The violence was also directed against the children and adolescents. The study authors spoke of violence that was structural, psychological, sexualized, and physical in nature.

(APA/Red)

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