More cases of child abuse uncovered
The number of reported cases of child and adolescent sexual abuse increased significantly in 2023. However, the statistics do not provide much information about the actual numbers. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) states in the Federal Situation Report on Sexual Crimes that many more cases came to light.
In the past year, the police became aware of 16,375 cases where children were sexually abused - an increase of 5.5% compared to the previous year. In the same period, 1,200 offenses were recorded where adolescents were sexually abused. The number of cases involving representations of child sexual abuse increased by 7.4% to approximately 45,000 cases.
According to the Federal Situation Report, the Federal Criminal Police Office points out that the number of detected cases of child abuse is closely related to police control activities and reporting behavior. "Therefore, it is also likely that, due to increased police activity in this field in recent years, the dark field has become clearer," the report states further.
The BKA also notes that many cases, in which there were indications mainly from the USA that no potential crime scene could be identified in Germany, do not enter the statistics. The reason for investigations sometimes running into a dead end is the suspension of mandatory data retention of telecommunications traffic data in Germany, especially IP addresses. Images and videos of sexually abused children and adolescents are shared thousands of times on the internet.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser and the Federal Criminal Police Office have been advocating for some time for a new legally conformant regulation for the storage of traffic and location data of telecommunications for a long time. They criticize that some providers no longer store data, which means that there are then no longer any information available for investigations.
In April, Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the FDP and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz reached an agreement on the Quick-Freeze procedure. According to this procedure, data is only stored when there is a suspicion of a serious crime. The agreement within the Federal Government on this matter is still ongoing. The old regulation for data retention has not been used since 2017 due to legal uncertainties.
Nancy Faeser, the Federal Minister of the Interior, has been advocating for a new regulation to store traffic and location data of telecommunications, as she believes that some providers stopping data retention hampers investigations into child abuse cases. The BKA highlights that many cases involving indications from the USA, where no potential crime scene could be identified in Germany, fail to enter the statistics due to the suspension of mandatory data retention in Germany.
