Police record more cases of child sexual abuse in Germany

The number of known cases of sexual abuse of children and young people has increased in Germany in the past year, according to a police report published on Monday.

However, since the police assume that there is a large number of unreported crimes of this kind, this alone is not a worrying finding, the report says.

In 2023, 16,375 cases of child sexual abuse were reported to the police – an increase of 5.5% compared to the previous year.

During the same period, 1,200 crimes were registered in which young people were sexually abused. The number of cases depicting the sexual abuse of children increased by 7.4% to around 45,000 cases, mainly due to numerous reports from abroad.

In its situation report, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) points out that the number of uncovered cases of child abuse is closely linked to the surveillance activities and reporting behavior of the police.

“In this respect, increased police activity in the area of ​​criminal offenses in recent years is likely to have led to an increase in the number of unreported cases,” the report states.

“Sexual abuse of children and young people is probably one of the most horrific and heinous forms of crime,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser when presenting the report.

Many of the victims are still very young; more than 2,200 girls and boys were younger than six years old at the time of the abuse, the minister stressed.

The reason why such investigations sometimes come to nothing is the abolition of the minimum storage requirement for telecommunications traffic data – especially IP addresses – in Germany.

Faeser reiterated her call for a new, legally compliant regulation on the storage of telecommunications traffic and location data.