Christian Moser — SOS Children's Villages Chief Suspended After Falter Revelation

Christian Moser has sat at the helm of SOS Children's Villages for 17 years. Three weeks after serious allegations against the organization became known, the supervisory board has suspended him from duty.

The supervisory board of SOS Children's Villages has removed long-time managing director Christian Moser from his function with immediate effect. "Christian Moser is suspended until the results of the investigation commission are available," Annemarie Schlack, member of the three-person management, tells Falter.

The decision was necessary to "ensure the credibility and transparency of the reform commission. This line is important to the supervisory board." Whether Moser will return, Schlack cannot currently say. Management, meaning Schlack and her colleague Nora Deinhammer, were informed about the suspension by the supervisory board on Friday.

The step is a rupture in the child protection organization. Moser is the face of the executive suite. The Tyrolean has worked at SOS Children's Villages for 30 years and has been its top boss for 17 years; the past six years he shared the leadership with two female managing directors. Whether someone will succeed him on an interim basis has not yet been decided. "We need time to reorganize ourselves," says Schlack. Stability in the organization is ensured.

The reason for Moser's withdrawal is the SOS Children's Villages scandal. Three weeks ago, Falter uncovered serious inappropriate treatment in a Children's Village. Until just a few years ago, children in the Carinthian SOS Children's Villages Moosburg were subjected to physical transgressions, photographed in an exposed state, punished with food and water deprivation, and locked in inappropriately. The village director, himself transgressive, knew about it. The executive floors also knew.

The renowned and donation-financed child protection organization found itself in need of explanation.

For the cases of inappropriate conduct were not vague rumors. The Institute for Men's and Gender Research in Graz listed the inappropriate conduct that occurred from 2008 to 2020 in detail in a study. It was anonymously leaked to Falter. SOS Children's Villages confirmed its authenticity — including the inappropriate treatment of children and young people described in it.

The 100-page document, based on protocols, emails, file memos, and interviews, was initiated by a courageous group of partly new employees — and after its completion, shelved by the management around Christian Moser.

The study does not describe isolated cases but a "system of inappropriate treatment in the Children's Village," as the authors write. This system was to be confirmed.

After Falter had published its investigations, letters, emails, and calls from alleged affected persons arrived at the editorial office — and another study. This time it was about the SOS Children's Villages Imst, the very first Children's Village, opened by founder Hermann Gmeiner in 1951.

In Imst, as the second study proves, the same system prevailed as in Moosburg: inappropriateness, fear, reprisals, emanating from the village director himself. The organization also covered up this study.

The newly emerged allegations were investigated by Falter in a follow-up story and could prove that Christian Moser and Elisabeth Hauser, in management from 2019 to 2023, had been informed since at least 2016.

But not only the two bosses, also the authorities, above all the Carinthian child and youth welfare office, looked the other way. The state's controls, prescribed by law, failed despite obvious indications. A "dangerous person" from Moosburg, as the study calls him, was even accommodated at the Carinthian Kinderfreunde with the knowledge of the authority.

Now the public prosecutor's offices are investigating the authorities in Tyrol and Carinthia and SOS Children's Villages — for endangering child welfare and abuse of office. The children and young people who had become affected persons in this case were not believed. State politics in Carinthia and Tyrol want to investigate the incidents "completely"; at the federal level, all parliamentary parties called on Family Minister Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP) to convene a "round table" with experts.

And Moser? The long-time managing director remained silent until now. Now the supervisory board took him out of the line of fire. Officially, until the results of the reform commission are available.

The commission was convened in response to the Falter investigations. It is led by a prominent personality: Irmgard Griss, former President of the Supreme Court and former Neos politician. Why is there a commission only now when management has known about the inappropriate treatment in the Children's Villages for years? "We are investigating whether the measures taken after the two studies are working or whether new ones are needed," Griss tells Falter; "I suspect the latter."

Managing director Schlack wants to wait. After the incidents in Moosburg and Imst, many measures had already been implemented, such as setting up a whistleblowing platform. Care settings had changed too. "Currently, only nine percent of children and young people are accommodated in Children's Village families," says Schlack.

The classic Children's Village families are often criticized by experts. Usually, a Children's Village mother takes care of five to six children. Christian Rudisch, as business manager responsible for all Children's Villages, says that these families now receive "high levels of support." These settings would continue to make sense "because they offer continuity."

He points to further measures: "We restructured the business management and we switched to digital documentation in the villages that cannot be changed retrospectively. This makes the documentation of daily care transparently traceable."

Furthermore, all new employees must now have an academic education and leadership positions have become more diverse. "By now, four of 14 Children's Village director positions are filled by women," says Rudisch. And: In the Moosburg and Imst villages, regular consultation hours of the child and youth advocacy office for children take place.

However, SOS Children's Villages ignored the recommendation contained in the studies to share them internally and publish them. Now the organization pledges improvement. "We will publish the results and recommendations of the commission both internally and externally. We have to change dynamics — there's no way around it. I'm making this my agenda," says Schlack.

When the commission will complete its work, Irmgard Griss cannot say: "When we're done." She has not yet read the studies from Moosburg and Imst. They are still at the starting line.

And the starting line is bumpy. After the announcement two weeks ago to establish a commission, it was already under criticism. SOS Children's Villages wanted to push three supervisory board members into the five-member body. That didn't fit with the promise of independent investigation.

"In order for us to objectively examine what happened, it is important that the commission works completely independently and without supervisory board members," says Griss. SOS Children's Villages accepted this. After all, they also want to illuminate the role of the executive suite and the supervisory board of SOS Children's Villages in this case.

A few days after the Falter investigations made the rounds in Austria, supervisory board member Willibald Cernko drew personal consequences. The former bank manager resigned his mandate at SOS Children's Villages. He admitted that he "was not up to the task in its depth of detail" and questioned the entire supervisory board, which is predominantly composed of managers from the private sector.

Will educators sit on the control body in the future? Schlack does not want to convey anything to the supervisory board. "I am now responsible for implementing the commission's recommendations," she tells Falter. They will learn from it and draw consequences, "so that in five years we won't need another commission."