Inappropriate Treatment and Cover-Up: "SOS Children's Villages Could Have Prevented Very Much"

The historian Horst Schreiber had already described the abuses that Falter uncovered two weeks ago in a study in 2014. The child protection organization learned nothing from it

Schreiber published an extensive study in 2014: "Committed to Silence." It was commissioned by SOS Children's Villages itself. They wanted to come to terms with their own past and draw conclusions for the present and future.

On nearly 250 pages, the historian describes how children and young people from 1950 to 1990 were subjected to physical transgressions and inappropriate treatment in the villages. SOS Children's Villages was long concerned with secrecy, he concludes; many signs of inappropriate treatment in their facilities were systematically ignored.

Schreiber's study from 2014 could hardly be more current.

A few weeks ago, Falter uncovered a scandal: Until just a few years ago, children and young people in at least two SOS Children's Villages were subjected to physical transgressions, locked in inappropriately, and treated with sadistic educational methods. This is documented by two secret studies from 2021 and 2022, produced by the Institute for Men's and Gender Research in Graz.

Unlike Horst Schreiber's study, they were neither published nor shared internally with educators. Quite the opposite: the management of SOS Children's Villages shelved the scientists' expertise in a password-protected folder; only a handful of people saw it.

Once again, SOS Children's Villages covered up the system of inappropriate treatment that Schreiber had already identified for the years 1950 to 1990 — and the organization would probably have continued looking the other way if someone hadn't dared to give Falter an anonymous tip.

After the silence, SOS Children's Villages is now going on the offensive. The cases of inappropriate conduct at the Children's Villages Moosburg (Carinthia) and Imst (Tyrol) had "caused serious suffering and triggered great consternation," management announced on September 22.

In it, the child protection organization also announced a "reform commission." SOS Children's Villages wants to review and reform the "entire organization." Chaired by Irmgard Griss, a prominent face will lead the body. Griss was President of the Supreme Court and Neos candidate for the 2016 presidential election.

SOS Children's Villages is working on damage control. Management and the supervisory board admit the abuses and promise to come to terms. On ORF, supervisory board member and former bank manager Willibald Cernko showed himself contrite. He had "possibly not been up to the task in this depth of detail."

What remains is the bitter question of why Falter's investigation was necessary for this realization. After all, the top bosses of SOS Children's Villages had long known about the abuses.

But instead of cleaning up, managing director Christian Moser, at the helm for 17 years, paid the affected persons high compensation — presumably from donation revenues that should have actually been used to protect the children. While he transferred the sums, children continued to be subjected to inappropriate treatment in Children's Villages.

In the meantime, the public prosecutor's office has gotten involved. It is investigating employees of SOS Children's Villages for inappropriate treatment of minors — and the Carinthian state authorities on suspicion of abuse of office. They are said to have not forwarded complaints and looked the other way for years.

Yet the responsible parties should have looked especially closely at the Children's Villages. The patriarchal structures that promote inappropriate treatment and at the same time cover it up had already been written down by Horst Schreiber ten years ago. Some Children's Villages are dangerously closed systems, he wrote. The study is available everywhere in book form; SOS Children's Villages proudly presents the investigation on its website.

And yet: years later, the authors of the studies find the same picture in the SOS Children's Villages Moosburg and Imst. Why have the child protectors learned nothing from the Schreiber study? Why is the Children's Village concept actually so toxic? And why does the organization rigidly cling to it?

Falter: Mr. Schreiber, in 2014, in your historical study on Children's Villages between 1950 and 1990, you came to the following conclusion: SOS Children's Villages conceals inappropriate treatment of children, ignores indications, and stonewalls toward the public. In Moosburg and Imst, these conditions prevailed, as we now know, until just a few years ago. Would you have considered that possible?

Horst Schreiber: Actually, no. It was already surprising in 2014 that there were still villages that were hierarchically led, where the village director had a lot of power and where brand protection stood before affected person protection. After my study, a whole series of improvements were introduced, and I had the impression that those responsible wanted to make a break with the past. But apparently, this power struggle still exists in the organization, between the persisting forces and the reformers who want to change something.

Should it make those responsible think that two new studies show exactly the same pattern of inappropriate treatment that you already pointed out years ago?

Schreiber: Yes. In the entire public discussion I have followed so far, I am missing: who within the top leadership was responsible for this? It is important that the organization looks not only at the role of the village directors but also at that of the highest floors.

SOS Children's Villages handled your study transparently in 2014; it was even published as a book. The two studies that Falter has now reported on, by contrast, were covered up — contrary to the study authors' recommendation. Not even internally did people get to see the paper. How do you explain that?

Schreiber: This can only be explained by a small, persisting circle in the leadership level continuing to prevail. From my perspective, however, I must also say: if you make a study as a scientist that investigates inappropriate treatment and shows that there are systemic abuses, then you yourself must not feel committed to silence either.

So you would not have adhered to the confidentiality clause that the authors signed?

Schreiber: No. When I received the commission, it was clear from the outset: I would only do it if the study comes to the public immediately, without censorship. With the two new studies, it was already known beforehand that inappropriate treatment had occurred. As a researcher, you can't actually commit yourself to secrecy then.

The studies were covered up by management, however. They now argue that they remained silent to avoid the risk of re-traumatization. Is that a plausible argument?

Schreiber: That bothers me immensely. That is borderline hypocrisy. What happens when we bring the inappropriate treatment into the public? It encourages affected persons to come forward. If the organization had publicly made its studies transparent, potential affected persons would have come forward much earlier.

After Falter reported on the studies: what should SOS Children's Villages have done immediately?

Schreiber: SOS Children's Villages should have admitted a systemic failure, not just apologized, but actively approached the children. The responsible parties should have said to them: "We want to hear from very many of you what happened." And then SOS Children's Villages would have to give all units the task of becoming active and going through the files of former village children. At least three years have passed since the studies, in which much more could have been done and prevented.

But at least SOS Children's Villages has now set up new ombuds offices.

Schreiber: That is too little. SOS Children's Villages will have to consider which credible people to send into the villages to talk to everyone.

The concealment and secrecy is a severe violation of the SOS Children's Villages ethos.

Schreiber: Yes. Enabling children to have a better life and preventing inappropriate treatment is the highest ethos of SOS Children's Villages. The cover-up and secrecy is a severe violation of this credo.

We ask directly: did concealing the studies, which document a pattern of inappropriate treatment, endanger the children and young people?

Schreiber: Yes. SOS Children's Villages did dismiss people or send them elsewhere. But that too happened in secret, even within the organization. How is anyone supposed to be encouraged to report inappropriate treatment if the bosses themselves sweep everything under the rug?

This model of Hermann Gmeiner, what exactly is it?

Schreiber: Gmeiner assumed that children need the healing power of the mother and not the distanced level of large educational homes. Behind this stands a corporatist state model from the 1930s: in the village, the male educational authority of the village director stood above everything. He had absolute power. He frequently had — like the mothers — no pedagogical training but certainly business competencies. Mothers, and later also psychologists, had a very weak position vis-a-vis the male, authoritarian village director. Since the 2000s, this has been changing, but not in all villages.

The case of the Sillober siblings: they were subjected to inappropriate conduct starting in the early 2000s by a man who came and went in the Children's Village. Even though the Children's Village mother and the psychologist there pointed out the inappropriate treatment and even demanded a ban on entry, the village director and the authorities covered up the inappropriate treatment for years. Everyone looked the other way.

Schreiber: The case laid bare the structures that lead to inappropriate treatment. I broadly analyzed that back then. But everything I have read so far about Imst, Moosburg, and Seekirchen shows: it is a total repetition.

It says in your study that a PR team recommended SOS Children's Villages to let calm return in order to protect the brand.

Schreiber: "Brand protection before affected person protection" is not just a saying. It was always the case in the organization that a lot of money was paid to a PR team to develop communication strategies designed to prevent a collapse in donations. Employees are obligated to a certain wording. And this wording — for example, that much is kept secret for reasons of affected person protection — actually serves to elevate an age-old concealment tactic to a high moral level.

SOS Children's Villages is now setting up a "reform commission." But the bosses have known about the abuses for years. Is external pressure necessary for something to change at SOS Children's Villages?

Schreiber: I assumed that this would no longer be necessary at the latest after my study. In the past ten years, SOS Children's Villages has also brought individual cases to the public. But here there seems to have been this massive systemic level that was never improved. To hold the top responsible parties accountable, you need media, you need external pressure. Otherwise, the systemic failure will be shifted onto individuals. That will be one of the main tasks of the Griss commission: to look closely at what happened in the highest power structures.

Schreiber lives a few meters from the management in Innsbruck and has repeatedly had exchanges with it in recent years. But no one ever sought a conversation with him about these cases, although he had intensively studied precisely these structures of inappropriate treatment for years.

"It is always the same thing. SOS Children's Villages actually doesn't need a new commission. The recommendations have long been on the table. But of course, the commission is necessary for SOS Children's Villages to show the public: we are no longer covering anything up. Besides, it will support the reformers. That is certainly an important thing."