Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Germany’s military has vowed to make it easier for service personnel to report sexual abuse and track what action is being taken following a damning report into misconduct.
Research by the military's own Centre of Military History and Social Sciences, found that 40 per cent of female soldiers had experienced at least one episode of sexual misconduct in the past 12 months.
This ranged from verbal harassment to visual abuse, such as unwilling exposure to pornography, unwanted touching or, in two per cent of cases, sexual violence.
About 19 per cent of male soldiers had also experienced similar misconduct, with non-heterosexual soldiers disproportionately affected.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the rise in reported sexual abuse cases was “unacceptable”, promising more advice would be offered to victims.
The report comes as Germany’s armed forces is trying to build up its military into the most powerful in Europe after decades of underinvestment that led the armed forces to shrink to a fraction of its size during the Cold War.
In 2025, the government approved plans for voluntary military service aimed at doubling the number of trained reservists to about 200,000, in addition to a target of at least 260,000 active-duty soldiers.
