Sexual abuse, physical violence, pregnancies, abortions, drug use and the production of child pornography are among the findings of an independent commission that investigated SOS Villages around the world.
The Austrian organization welcomes more than 65,000 children and supports nearly 400,000 and in a well-known 262-page report, crimes that have occurred over decades are denounced, but also the cover-up of these and those who committed them.
The document – that you can consult here – reports on cases of sexual abuse of minors that occurred mainly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, also including rare references to European countries. Despite also hosting Aldeias SOS, Portugal does not appear in the report.
The document describes abuse of minors, some of which resulted in cases of child pregnancies, and even forced abortions on girls without the families realizing it. There are also records of cases of sexual abuse among sheltered children and youth.
In cases where the perpetrators of abuse were adults, they were often the main donors to the organization: in one case, one of the abusers was taken to an SOS village in Nepal and abused children there for several years.
However, most of the abusers were senior officials of the institution and in Cambodia children were used for pornography, especially on social media.
The report also reveals that concern over concealing abuse was high, describing greater efforts to avoid lawsuits than to protect children.
In addition to episodes of physical and sexual violence, environments without rules are described, where it was not uncommon to have access to drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes, but also heroin.
Many of the case reports come from complaints and field visits in many of the SOS villages and while the report notes that thousands of staff did an exceptional job, it notes that the organization allowed the development of a culture of fear and abuse that keep going. for this day.
The investigation raises questions about how Syrian children were forcibly removed from their families and returned, and the Russian delegation is suspended on suspicion of receiving Ukrainian children illegally removed from the invaded country.
Several cases of corruption, fraud or money laundering were also confirmed and an environment of nepotism and abuse of power was described, without leadership, as well as insufficient payment by the NGO, the employees and the families that welcomed the minors.
The commission that investigated these cases was headed by a former Kenyan judge and focuses mainly on events from the year 2000, but detected cases from the 1980s and 1990s.
Despite the fact that in the last two years changes have been introduced in the way Aldeias SOS works, the new management of the NGO admits that much remains to be corrected.
Hundreds of victims have already received psychological support and an economic fund has been created to grant compensation.
Source: TSF
