Press release No. 328 of 27 August 2020
WIESBADEN – In 2019, the youth welfare offices in Germany recognised an endangerment of the best interests of a child or young person in roughly 55,500 cases. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that this was an increase of about 5,100 cases, or 10%, compared with 2018. The number of child endangerment cases increased by 10% to a new record high for the second year in a row. This increase might have been due to the comprehensive reporting on cases of child abuse in the recent two years, which can be expected to have further raised the awareness of the general public and of public authorities. At the same time, however, the real number of cases might have increased, too. In Germany as a whole, the youth welfare offices investigated more than 173,000 suspected cases based on a danger assessment procedure in 2019. This was an increase of roughly 15,800 cases compared with a year earlier.
