From flirting messages to sexual violence: At German schools, teachers repeatedly attack students. There are no official figures for this. On request, several federal states have published the first statistics since 2012 - but not all cases are documented.
Since 2012, 231 cases have been reported in Germany in which teachers approached students sexually. The magazine "Stern" reports that it asked the state ministries of education for the number because there were no central statistics. Only eight ministries had submitted all documented cases, it said. Three countries did not answer the request.
The data is therefore fed partly from crime statistics and partly from information from the responsible authorities. Experts agree that very few attacks are recorded. Teachers often make contact via social media, the magazine quotes trauma expert Astrid Herrmann-Haase, who works in Halle at the "Wildwasser" advice center.
The reported cases are likely to be a fraction of the actual number: Only nine federal states have any statistics on the cases at all, some of them only recently, according to the report. They also showed that German schools and the responsible authorities are alarmingly blind when it comes to sexualised violence.
Five former victims report in the "Stern" about border crossings by their teachers and "relationships" that were actually abuse. According to this, children and young people are exposed to different types of abuse at school. Some reported patterns these teachers use to approach.
A student reports on the relationship with her teacher, which began when she was 15 and he was 51. He is said to have made her mentally and physically pliable for nine years, only when she was an adult was she able to break free thanks to therapy. The aim is to tell about their experiences so that others are warned.
