Scandal comes to a head
Sexual abuse also in Vienna’s SOS Children’s Village
The SOS Children's Village is sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of physical, psychological and sexual violence. New cases are constantly surfacing: Next week there will be an OLG hearing against a social pedagogue (50) from a Children's Village facility in the Austrian capital who was convicted in August. He is accused of more than a dozen sexual assaults on two boys who lived in the residential group.
The terrible series of allegations against SOS Children's Villages continues unabated. Following locations in Carinthia, Tyrol and Salzburg as well as allegations of abuse against the founder Hermann Gmeiner, who died in 1986, and an alleged paedophile donor who received "favours", the "Krone" also reports on a recent case from Vienna.
First court: two and a half years in prison
In August, a 50-year-old former supervisor at an SOS Children's Village facility in the Austrian capital was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of minors, among other things. The appeal hearing on the sentence will take place next week in the Palace of Justice.
Chronology
At the beginning of October, the independent reform commission is constituted to investigate the abuses that have become public at SOS Children's Villages. Facilities in several federal states are criticized.
At the end of October , it becomes known that the founder Hermann Gmeiner, who died in 1986, is accused of sexual and physical abuse of eight boys. A deceased major Austrian donor is also suspected of having sexually abused Children's Village children during visits to South East Asia between 2010 and 2014.
The acts the man is accused of: According to the court, he seriously assaulted a boy in 14 attacks in 2021 and 2022 as part of his job. He is also alleged to have committed sexual acts against another 12-year-old resident of the facility - twice when the boy was awake and once when he was asleep. In the residential group, the social education worker was even the caregiver of his victim - a position he is believed to have exploited.
His colleague had "suppressed" explosive information
In his testimony before the senate of lay assessors, the accused spoke of a "very good relationship" with the young people. He had been on duty alone on some weekends and denied sexual contact during the trial. However - and this unfortunately seems symptomatic in the Children's Village system: in December 2022, he allegedly told a colleague at a Christmas party that he had become intimate with one of the boys. However, this colleague did not report it at the time.
"I suspect that I repressed it," the man said as a witness in court. It was only when the memories of the conversation came back to him, triggered by statements from one of the victims, that he reported it to his superior and the police.
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