Racial violence against children spikes in Germany

 

BRANDENBURG – Counselling centres for victims of racially motivated violence are alarmed by an almost doubled number of attacks on children.

The jump in attacks was announced at the presentation of the annual balance sheet of the Association of Counselling Centres for Victims of Right-Wing, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence (VBRG) on Tuesday in Berlin.

Sultana Sediqi, from the association Youths Without Borders in the German state of Thuringia, said since the number doubled within a year, this massively impacts the everyday life of the affected families.

She referred to the incident from last weekend to the south-east of Berlin in Heidsee in the state of Brandenburg, where a group of Berlin students were the target of racist insults.

The State Security Service is investigating incitement and threats.
According to the VBRG’s annual report, in 2022 a total of up to five far-right attacks occurred daily in the 10 federal states in which counselling centres for victims systematically record them.

According to the report, 2,861 people were directly affected by far-right motivated attacks in eastern Germany, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.

According to the data, 520 of them were minors, up from the previous year’s 288 children and youths. VBRG board member Robert Kusche said that many incidents remain unreported in places where there is insufficient counselling service.

Doris Liebscher, head of the Ombudsman’s Office of the Berlin State Office for Equal Treatment and Against Discrimination, also assumes that many violent crimes with far-right, racist and anti-Semitic motivations go unreported.

In addition these motives aren’t adequately recognized by the police or the public prosecution and therefore not taken into account for the judges sentencing.