Why the new German study “Sexualized violence against children and adolescents” is pseudoscience and misleading propaganda
; Jun 16 2025| Type of Work | Criticism of a research report |
On June 2, 2025, the German Medical Journal (Deutsches Ärzteblatt) published an article entitled “Sexualized violence against children and adolescents. A nationwide, representative survey on prevalence, situational context, and consequences.”
- * Translation by the author.
- *See Dreßing et al. (2025) < https://di.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/244282 >
- Quotes from Sexual Violence Against Children and Adolescents
< https://www.ipce.info/library/journal-article/quotes-sexual-violence-against-child
On the same day, leading German media outlets published detailed and largely identical reports on the study's findings. “Sexualized violence” was defined in the survey conducted by the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim as follows:
- “Any act of a sexual nature committed against persons under the age of 14 or against
the will of a person under the age of 18. This includes any acts with or without physical contact, for example, sexual harassment, sexual coercion, and attempted or completed penetration of the body.” - * Translation by the author.
The survey questioned 3,012 randomly selected people from Germany aged between 18 and 59.
... ... ...
Two key findings of the study are therefore (allegedly):
“Sexualized violence” against children and adolescents is very widespread, and most “perpetrators” are (significantly older) adults.
In this article, I would like to describe and explain why the study is pseudoscientific and flawed.
