In a press release, SOS Children's Villages confirms the failure and “immediately introduces new measures to support victims, prevent future harm, and improve existing systems, in order to consistently ensure qualitative care for all children in their programs.
"Deeply saddened"
It is not clear where in the world the current events took place, but it concerns both previous and current cases of child abuse, corruption, misuse of child support and violations of the rules that are in place to protect the human rights of children and employees.
- This is not about any new cases, but about already known cases.
We have already talked about these in previous reports, but it does not matter.
We are located in 137 countries, have 40,000 employees and take care of 1.5 million children.
I am deeply saddened and sad for each individual case, says Secretary General Anna Ernestam at SOS Children's Villages in Sweden to the newspaper Omvärlden.
Several cases of sexual abuse were reported in 2019. These included a rape, an attempted rape, four cases where children were manipulated into sex (in Sweden equal to rape) and nine cases of sexual harassment.
A total of 15 children were affected and 12 employees were involved.
The year before, there were 26 cases of sexual abuse, writes Omvärlden.
"It is important that it is not repeated"
The inquiry has been appointed by the international board, and is led by an independent person outside the organization.
Among the measures presented is an ombudsman system.
One of the major donors to SOS Children's Villages in Sweden is the Postcode Lottery, which awaits the investigation before taking action.
- The important thing now is that the victims are taken care of and that measures are put in place so that a similar event can not be repeated, says Roger Magnergård, press officer, to Omvärlden.