A former SOS Children’s Villages employee in Austria faces charges for the alleged sexual abuse of two minors at a care home from 2017.
VIENNA: A former employee of an Austrian children’s charity has been charged with the sexual abuse of minors.
Prosecutors in Salzburg announced the charges against a 57-year-old Austrian man on Wednesday.
The man previously worked as a “family helper” at an SOS Children’s Villages facility in Seekirchen.
He faces charges of aggravated sexual abuse of minors, coercion, and abuse of authority.
The assaults are alleged to have occurred from 2017 over a three-year period.
Prosecutors state he sexually abused two girls placed at the Seekirchen home.
The charges include “repeated touching of their breasts and pubic areas.”
He allegedly used threats and violence to coerce one victim into silence.
The defendant was already convicted of sexual abuse of minors in 2021.
Those latest charges were not known at the time of his prior conviction.
He was no longer employed by the charity when convicted in 2021.
If found guilty on the new charges, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
A court hearing date has not yet been scheduled.
SOS Children’s Villages Austria has faced several abuse allegations since last year.
The scandal led to a prosecutor’s probe and the suspension of its director.
Last year, the charity compensated eight people accusing its late founder of abuse.
The organisation was founded in 1949 by Hermann Gmeiner as Societas Socialis.
It was later renamed SOS Kinderdorf and supports orphaned or abandoned children.
The group became a global federation in 1963 operating in over 130 countries.
