Up to 9,355 minors may have been sexually abused within the Evangelical Church in Germany, according to an estimate published by researchers in a report presented in Hanover on Thursday.
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According to the report, 2,225 cases of sexual abuse were counted, involving 1,259 perpetrators, they write, estimating that this number is only the “tip of the iceberg” because they were unable to study all the files.
According to estimates by Harald Dressing, researcher at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim (ZI), the number of potential perpetrators could be up to 3,500.
The report, which contains over 800 pages, was prepared on behalf of the Evangelical Church of Germany by experts from various German universities and institutes.
According to Dressing, the Evangelical Church in Germany performs less well than its Catholic sister church when it comes to investigating cases of sexual abuse, even though it has itself been widely criticized.
“If we compare the two, the evangelical church does less well,” Mr. Dressing said during the presentation press conference, citing the lack of documentation provided for the study.
In the German Catholic Church, a university survey published in 2018 found that 3,677 children had suffered sexual violence at the hands of clergy between 1946 and 2014.
As for the Protestant Church, the actual number of victims is estimated to be higher since the authors of the report did not have access to all of the institution's archives.