“We need to clarify what the perpetrators themselves can contribute”

adminonNovember 23, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

At the start of the Round Table on Child Abuse, Federal Family Minister Kristina Schroder (CDU) urged that perpetrators not be released from responsibility. We should not only look at the institutions, she said in an epd interview in Berlin.

epd: The Abuse Round Table, which will meet for the first time on Friday, will be attended by some 60 representatives of the federal government, the states, local authorities, associations, churches and other institutions. How are the victims represented?
Kristina Schroder: Victims' side played a major role from the beginning. We have therefore invited central child protection associations and nationwide associations of counseling centers for victims of sexual violence: These include the organization Wildwasser, which is represented by its umbrella organization , as well as a counseling center that specializes in men and boys as victims of abuse. The White Ring, which supports victims of crime, is also at the table, as are associations that provide counseling and intervention services. So the concerns of the victims are well represented.
epd: The contact and counseling centers for victims unanimously say they are underfunded. Can and should the federal government also provide funds? About the same as it helps finance the expansion of child care?
Schroder: I take the statements of the organizations very seriously, we have to talk about that at the round table. But it's too early for announcements. Round table must first take stock. What do we have to offer and where are there gaps? In very many communities there is already a good offer of help.
epd: Where do you see gaps?
Schroeder: We must also take care of the therapy of pedophilic men. There are already some very good projects, for example "Kein Tater werden" in Berlin. We must now examine how we can create more such qualified contact points in Germany to which pedophile men can turn before they become perpetrators. The topic has received too little attention so far.
epd: Another key ie is compensation for victims. What is your position on this?
Schroder: We have appointed the former Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Christine Bergmann, as our commissioner, and she has taken up her work with great enthusiasm. It collects reports of the victims and will make suggestions to material and immaterial compensation payments by the responsible ones. The state only comes into play when state authorities, for example school supervision, have failed. The point is that those who are responsible also live up to their responsibility.
epd: So the institutions, the churches?
Schroder: The institutions are one thing. But I also agree with Cardinal Karl Lehmann, who criticizes that we are currently only talking about the institutions and not actually about the individual offenders. We think too quickly about the system, but not about individual responsibility. Of course, compensation for a victim must not fail because the perpetrator is unable to pay. But I think it is crucial in terms of individual justice that we clarify what the perpetrators themselves can contribute.
epd: Legally, however, individual perpetrators can no longer be apprehended 20 to 30 years after the abuse, because the statute of limitations has run on the act. Do you think it is realistic for a perpetrator to voluntarily compensate his victim?
Schroder: I draw a very sharp distinction here between the legal question of whether a claim may be statute-barred and the moral question of whether one actually invokes the statute of limitations. These are two completely different levels. I therefore do not consider it unrealistic that either individual perpetrators or employment institutions such as the churches will be willing to pay compensation in view of the moral dimension.
epd: The churches say they need a legal basis for payments. Since these have not existed until now, fund solutions are easier to handle. This was also suggested by the moderator of the Round Table on Home Education, Antje Vollmer. Do you think it makes sense to move toward a fund solution at the Abuse Round Table??
Schroder: Antje Vollmer, as moderator of the Round Table Home Education, has suggested a fund for victims with trauma. We will certainly discuss the question at the Round Table on Child Abuse, but the outcome is open.
epd: When will the round table answer this question??
Schroder: In any case, an interim report should be available by the end of the year. Then it will become clear what still needs to be done.
epd: The family is by far the place where sexual abuse occurs most often. Is it possible to 'crack' this area?
Schroder: We will never be able to completely prevent child abuse. But there are processes we can intervene in. Perpetrators almost always test out first how far they can go. We know that children who reject advances or avoid contact are less likely to become victims. Here's where you can chime in. We have the Conference of Education Ministers at the table: Abuse must be an ie in schools. Children must know that in every case the perpetrator is to blame, that abuse always happens against the will of the child and who they can turn to.
epd: Are you in favor of extending the statute of limitations for victims' civil claims so that a right to compensation is preserved longer?
Schroder: There is a conviction among many members of parliament that these deadlines are too short.
epd: What would you like to see as a result of the Round Table?
Schroder: What we need are clear rules, perhaps in the form of voluntary commitments, about what institutions do to prevent and intervene. We also need to agree on what the relationship between proximity and distance should be. And: It would be fatal if a general suspicion were to arise against male educators.
epd: Then at the end you have a new action plan, everyone sits back satisfied, and nothing happens.
Schroder: No, then it must be implemented. The action plan should include mandates for the various institutions and levels of government. After a reasonable period of time, the tasks must be implemented. I want to see results.
epd: Too little has happened in the past? There is already an action plan, a federal-state working group and elaborated concepts.
Schroder: I would not say that too little has happened in general. Sexual abuse still takes place. However, we are currently dealing with cases that, for the most part, date back decades. In this respect, one cannot blame the institutions in their current structure for the cases at that time. Good educational work is being done on the subject – but we still have to do better overall.Interview: Bettina Markmeyer, Thomas Schiller and Jutta Wagemann

An intelligent toy

Whoever wants to get to the confidenced Mind Children and wants to develop everyday behaviors to deal with them, who would have to strike quickly quickly, because Sony will only offer a few thousand stucco his robot dog AIBO, for that you can make the easiest export for 2.5000 dollars over the internet. From 1. June is the new variety of pets orders.

After the success of the Tamagotchi, the AIBOS should now also conquer the profitable market of artificial pets and at the same time mark entry into theest century: "The last 10 years of 20. Century were dominated by PCs and the Internet", Means Sony’s VicePrasident Toshitada Doi. "The next 10 years we are sure that robots with free movement represent the next trend."

Aibo means in Japanese partner and is at the same time the coverage for Astatifical INtelligence roBot. A lot is promised: "A robot that foes, learns and growing." Even in development, Sony itself is the allegedly intelligent robot called Robokoneko, but in the form of a possible lifelike cat with coat. AIBO, on the other hand, is actually a robot dog, which is now to offer the competitor Furby Paroli and, in contrast to the Japanese cat of Masushita, which is to be used for tele-altenbuilder, is all on the entertainment of old and young.

as "Wunder" Is Aibo equipped with 18 joints and can not only go to four legs or sit down, but also "Mood" Print by stretching by stretching, getting up when he slows down despite motion sensors, camera and distance sensor, or move the legs when it lies on the jerk. Apart from the pre-programmed cumbers of the joy, the mourning, the Arger, surprise, the fear and disgust and instincts (love, looking, moving, charging or hunger), AIBO reacts even on accessories. Through a touch sensor on the head you can stroke him (however, the MUB had to happen for at least two seconds) or punish with a punch. We take this course to lift our self-firing, and around the autonomous robot, he should develop too much average momentum to keep under control, if he really should be of learning. If AIBO should be in bad mood, then he could not pay attention to the commands. Thankfully, you can then switch it off quickly or switch to remote control to control your movements. Different, he leads a few preprogrammed tricks. A pause switch can also bring him to rest or when he expires to sleep, wake up again.

But permanent in the Tamagotchi model – or as it is with animals and humans – the AIBOS should also grow up, which, of course, demands the attention of the owners who probably with such "autonomous" Robots can see a little faster than in children of human or animal to see if their educational work fruits something. If everything does not succeed, you only need to buy the additional module for 450 dollars to create new movement runs. Apparently, a built-in dying was discussed at Sony, but the commodity for a builder who spends a lot of money, but a little too lifelike when he has one "partner" with expiration date. Then he could take a real dog with all the bad biological properties. On the other hand, the programmed finiteness could just increase the stimulus. Where there is little time, more attention will be invested – and is the follow-up purchase of a clone for pleasure.

Sony, of course, promises that Aibo was developed with the aim of a human robot coexistence that the owner – or even the AIBO itself? – surprise. Maybe there is an ancestor from Hal to us, which has only 8 MB of memory, which was allowed to confront his creativity a little. In a demonstration he could catch a pink ball, otherwise Aibo is still pretty unprotected for communication with his mistress or master. Although he owns two microphones, but does not understand any language yet. This should come into lateral versions. For this he can bark, speak and – as already! – Sing in English and Japanese.

Oh yes, nine teams want to use the platform of AIBO at the next RoboCup.

He was a doctor in a gown and was concerned with the question of why people take their own lives. Klaus Thomas founded the telephone counselling service in Germany. He would have turned 100 this year.

Throughout his life, Klaus Thomas was driven by one question above all others: Why do people take their own lives? He was convinced: "One can, indeed one must, stop suicides."For him, suicide was "an expression of an illness that can be cured." On 31. January he would have been 100 years old.

He embodied "the rare personal union of doctor, educator, psychologist and theologian," as the foreword to one of his many books says, which propelled him forward. To this day, he has saved the lives of countless people with suicidal intentions through the telephone counselling service he created.

Saving lives with telephone counselling

The researcher and Protestant pastor, whom the "Berliner Morgenpost" once described as a "scientist between Pentecostal enlightenment and medical pragmatism", focused specifically on the question of how suicide can be prevented. The main symptom of "all the despairing and life-weary, the depressive as well as the neurotic, is their loneliness and contact disorder, respectively," he wrote in his work "Handbook of Suicide Prevention". Preventing suicides, he said, meant letting a person in distress know "that he is not alone."

He wanted to convey this feeling to desperate people when he brought the telephone counselling service to Germany in 1956. The idea of this counseling was not new: Already in 1895, the Rev. Harry Warren established the world's first telephone chaplaincy and counselling for those tired of life in New York. In Europe, however, it established itself only after the Second World War. In London in 1953, a priest named West took out an ad and wrote, "Before you take your own life, give me a call!"

After catching Thomas, help for suicidal people meant first and foremost: "recognize the danger in time." He recruited the first 20 telephone chaplains at the "Paulinum" preaching school in East Berlin, where the theologian had a teaching assignment.

Providing pastoral care

At the heart of the training for the founder was a "central biblical, humanly warm and understanding pastoral care."Thomas founded the "arztliche Lebensmudenbetreuung Berlin," which included telephone counseling. At first, he saw a need only in his native West Berlin: the city had "the highest suicide rate in the world." Thomas suspected the cause was the high number of old people and the isolation of the city due to the building of the Wall in 1961.

Even as a scientist, Thomas has remained a theologian. This can be read out in many places of his works. During World War II, he was a parish and student pastor in Berlin, then a clinic pastor in Marburg, Hesse. In his book "Why continue to live?" he wrote on the task of pastoral care, it could "life-weary" awaken faith in "that God leads life according to a valid plan, which we do not always and not immediately understand." At the same time, the mental physician also dealt with the psychological problems of clergymen.

In the first four and a half years after opening his counseling center, twelve percent of those seeking help were church officials. "Of the 85 married, almost exclusively pastors and pastors' wives, 67 times must be spoken of a marital catastrophe," noted St. Thomas, reporting "prudishly brought up" pastors or clergymen with homosexual tendencies or "sickening professional conflicts."

Improve quality of life

The doctor, who has been married twice, used the data from the "suicidal care" to help advance suicide research. Within six years, he said, 10.000 advice-seekers came to a discussion, he summed up. 30.000 others had contacted the telephone counselling service during that time.

Klaus Thomas was also the main propagator of autogenic training, a relaxation technique that he believed could improve the quality of life. He died in 1992 and was buried in Berlin-Zehlendorf. There have already been two attempts to upgrade his grave as an honorary burial place. So far in vain.

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