Research on Dealing with Sexualised Violence and Other Forms of Abuse in the Protestant Church (ForuM/TPB)

From 2021 - 2023, the interdisciplinary research network ForuM investigated the processing of sexualized violence and other forms of abuse in the Protestant Church in Germany. Further information about the research network and upcoming publications can be found at: www.forum-studie.de.

The final report was published in January 2024:
Forschungsverbund ForuM (Hrsg.) (2024): Abschlussbericht – Forschung zur Aufarbeitung von sexualisierter Gewalt und anderen Missbrauchsformen in der Evangelischen Kirche und Diakonie in Deutschland. Available for download here.

The FHP was involved in the sub-project “Organization and person: systemic conditions and the practice of coming to terms with (sexualized) violence” under the co-leadership of Prof. Dr. Friederike Lorenz-Sinai. The sub-study is interested in the conditions, processes and constellations of dealing with sexualized violence in Protestant communities and daycare centres. To this end, four multi-perspective case studies were conducted. One case study concerns youth work in Protestant congregations. Two case studies examine the practice of dealing with (suspected) cases of sexualized violence by professionals in Protestant day-care centres. Another case study is located at the interface between Protestant daycare centres and church congregations and examines the organizational processing after assaults by children in a church daycare centre and by employees at the church workplace.

Document analyses were carried out and narrative interviews and group discussions were conducted with victims, parents, reported persons, professionals and institutional representatives of the church and local authorities in order to reconstruct the practice of dealing with the various cases. The data material was analyzed using methodological approaches from interpretative and reconstructive social research.