By Andra Fischer
The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is asking for help with the search at Berlin’s schools. It searches for a girl who was a victim of child pornography videos. The child has not yet been identified.
Berlin teachers should help the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to identify a victim from child pornographic videos!
A letter to this effect has been sent to primary and secondary schools in Berlin.
The letter from the education administration to the headmaster states that the BKA asks “as part of a target group-oriented nationwide public search (“school search”) for support in identifying a child victim after sexual abuse, production and distribution of child pornographic video recordings”.
The victim is a girl who was around 12 years old between September 2021 and November 2022.
The wanted folder, which is made available to the schools, contains two portrait photos of the child. It is emphasized: “Of course, only recordings of the child to be identified without sexual content can be seen in the search documents.”
This school manhunt runs both analogue and digital. Because not all schools in Berlin are connected to the Central School Administration Environment (ZSVU), the wanted files are to be handed over to the schools without being connected to police officers.
Strict guidelines apply to the digital search: The documents are made available via a special school search server, which the headmaster can only access via the Berlin state school network.
According to the decision of the District Court of Frankfurt am Main, all teachers, secretariats, educators and social workers are allowed to look at the search documents in addition to the school management. “In the interest of the victim, the number of people who could learn about the child’s victim status is to be kept small,” the letter said.
According to the BKA, there have been school searches of this kind, mostly nationwide, since 2012. “Since then, school searches have been carried out in a total of 32 cases,” says BKA spokesman Jakob Bednarz.
The Berlin police have recorded a massive increase in the crime area of distribution, acquisition, possession and production of child pornography. In the 2021 crime statistics, 1869 cases were listed, 1230 more than in the previous year – an increase of 192.5 percent!