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Berlin / Ulm / Frankfurt am Main (dpa) - Warnings from child protection activists that violence in families could increase in the corona pandemic seem to be coming true.
This threatens above all where there were difficulties before the pandemic.
"The air is getting thinner and people explode faster," says the founder of the Arche children's project, Bernd Siggelkow.
"The level of stress is high and the psychological strain for children is immense," says the director of the Arche, which creates offers for children from disadvantaged families at 27 locations across Germany.
Children are more aggressive towards each other and towards their parents.
"We recently had a situation in which an eight-year-old wanted to strangle her mother," said Siggelkow.
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With a poster campaign in Berlin and other cities, the Innocence in Danger association is warning of the side effects of the lockdown for children.
The main focus is on victims of sexual abuse, which often takes place at home.
«In the lockdown, social control mechanisms by schools or clubs are no longer applicable.
Children are at the mercy of perpetrators in their families, ”explains managing director Julia von Weiler.
Representative data showing an increase in violence in families during the corona pandemic are not yet available, according to child protection expert Jörg Fegert.
"However, online surveys indicate that around a third of all children have psychological abnormalities, while it was around a fifth before the first lockdown," says the child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Ulm University Hospital.
After the end of the first lockdown, the medical child protection hotline recorded a significant increase in calls, said Fegert, who heads the hotline.
Doctors, psychotherapists and youth welfare staff, for example, can contact them there if they would like collegial advice on suspected child abuse.
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The nationwide helpline “Number against Kummer” has also seen a significant increase in calls from overburdened parents and children with problems. Experiences of violence were discussed more frequently by children and young people in the 2020 pandemic year than in 2019, reports spokeswoman Anna Zacharias. Around 9,200 children and young people with a problem of violence turned to the child and youth telephone - around 15 percent more than in 2019. Online advice was also used more often, by around 1,100 children and young people - 17 percent more than in 2019.
“The online advice was used a lot more overall.
Possibly because children and young people can use them unnoticed by their parents, ”says the President of the German Child Protection Association (DKSB), Heinz Hilgers.
The DKSB supports the hotline.
“Since the right to a nonviolent upbringing was enshrined in law in 2000, we have achieved great success for about 15 years.
Then development stagnated.
Now we fear setbacks from Corona, ”said Hilgers.
But not every child is able to seek help on their own.
“It takes people who are actually aware of problems.
If children no longer go to school, no longer go to the hospital or the doctor's practice, the chances of being heard are also lower, ”says Ulm expert Fegert.
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Bernd Siggelkow counts the young Arche visitors to the children who are not or hardly heard.
“We are the unreported number,” he says.
Many of the things that the children experienced would not be made public.
His employees tried to look after the children despite the pandemic.
But this is only possible in small groups.
"The children can only come to the ark every ten days," Siggelkow regrets.
The director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Frankfurt, Christine Freitag, also speaks of an unreported number.
Above all, she observed a sharp increase in anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders and eating disorders.
«The children and young people need an everyday life, they have to go to school and see their friends.
Of course, this can only work with a hygiene concept, ”she emphasizes.
She is amazed at how little has been done so far to ensure safe processes in schools and daycare centers. “In March 2020, we switched to hygiene measures in the hospital within five weeks. It is no longer comprehensible that the schools can not do it », said Freitag, who is also on the board of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy.
Teachers and educators are not hygiene experts, she emphasizes.
The federal states are responsible for working with experts to develop concepts that are implemented at an early stage.
“For example, ventilation systems could have been installed across the board and test strategies developed long ago.
From my point of view, there is something like an organized irresponsibility with regard to the previous strategy for opening up schools and daycare centers, ”says Freitag.
Will a whole generation now suffer long-term damage?
The Ulm expert Fegert advocates «not discussing whether we now have a lost generation».
“For our part of the world, these are words that are too exaggerated and that even children immediately give up.
Most of them will cope well and tell their own children what a strange time it was, ”he is convinced.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210423-99-320023 / 2
Medical child protection hotline
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Children's project Ark
German Child Protection Association
Number against grief