Press release No. 315 of 27 July 2022
- Case numbers rising again after four-year decline
- Particularly large increase by 49% after unaccompanied entry from abroad
- In the second Covid year, too, the youth welfare offices reported fewer cases of acute danger to a child’s best interests with minors being taken into care (-6%)
WIESBADEN – Following a four-year decline, the number of cases where children and young people were taken into care went up again in Germany. In 2021, the youth welfare offices took 47,500 children and young people into care temporarily to protect them. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that this was an increase of nearly 2,100 cases, or 5%, compared with a year earlier. There was a particularly strong increase by more than 3,700 cases, or 49%, after unaccompanied entry from abroad. In contrast, there were again fewer cases of minors being taken into care on account of acute danger to the child’s best interests in the second Covid year 2021. The authorities registered a decrease of roughly 1,800 such cases, or 6%, compared with 2020. A slightly higher number of children and young people asked the youth welfare offices to be taken into care (+170 cases, or +2%), after the number of such cases had gone down markedly in 2020 (-800 cases, or -10%, from 2019).
Basic data and long time series are available in table Temporary protective measures for children and adolescents (22523) in the GENESIS-Online database.
