At the end of February, a woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Krems regional court in Lower Austria. She is said to have tortured her own son for months and even locked him in a dog crate. In court she was found guilty of, among other things, attempted murder of the boy. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The “dog crate trial” shocked many in Austria. Because the mother of the abused boy was known to the youth welfare office. After receiving information from the child's school and a hospital, social workers made two unannounced home visits to the family. But despite many indications of possible danger to the child's well-being - for example that the son was injured, that there was no cot in the apartment and that it smelled of urine - the social workers apparently saw no urgent need for action. Two days after the last home visit, the boy was taken to hospital in life-threatening condition; he barely survived.
In this episode of Inside Austria we reconstruct the martyrdom of a twelve-year-old boy who was exposed to violence from his own mother for months. We want to know why the authorities have not intervened more strongly despite repeated indications of possible mistreatment. We talk about child abuse in Austria and Germany and ask what needs to happen so that children are better protected from violence.
In the weekly podcast “Inside Austria,” SPIEGEL and “Standard” look together at the big and small scandals in Austria. Together with journalists from both editorial teams, we reconstruct cases and events that move the country. We look into the political abyss, follow the investigations surrounding the Sebastian Kurz case and his ÖVP and provide information about an important Austrian topic of the week.