Organized and Ritualized Sexual Violence

We have in-depth specialist knowledge in the field of “Organized and Ritualized Sexualized Violence” (ORSV) and contribute our expertise by providing information, advice, and education on this subject. To this end, we offer workshops and webinars for a wide range of professional groups (e.g. police officers, public authorities, doctors and nursing staff, social workers, victim protection services, and research institutions). We help impart knowledge about these criminal structures and networks in order to facilitate the recognition of victims and the identification of perpetrators.

Warning:
This overview article contains descriptions that may trigger distressing or retraumatizing memories and feelings.

Below, we would like to provide a brief, summarized overview of this form of criminality:
What is “Organized and Ritualized Sexualized Violence”?
What do the criminal structures look like?
How do the perpetrators specifically proceed?
Victim protection and prosecution of perpetrators

What is “Organized and Ritualized Sexualized Violence”?

This refers to sexualized violence that is not perpetrated by a single individual alone, but occurs within organized structures or groups and may involve recurring, predetermined, or symbolically charged procedures (“rituals”). The term “ritualized” can refer to very different things – from repeated procedures established within a group to acts to which those involved attach a particular symbolic or religious significance.

Examples may include:

organized groups of perpetrators and networks in which perpetrators protect one another and intimidate victims,
the exploitation of multiple victims,
the production and commercial exploitation of pornographic photographic and video material, for example in a private photo studio and with the aid of digital tools,
forced prostitution and the sale of victims to groups of men for days-long orgies of violence whose brutality goes far beyond what occurs in legal prostitution.

Forms of violence that may occur include, for example:

The most severe and repeated sexual abuse, from infancy through adulthood
The most extreme use of brutal violence
Torture, such as severe physical abuse, electric shocks, burns, suffocation or asphyxiation, sexualized torture, psychological torture, and the withholding of essential necessities

What do the criminal structures look like?

These structures frequently involve family-based, cult-like perpetrator networks in which such criminal structures have existed for many generations. One generation of perpetrators trains the next generation of perpetrators. This means that perpetrator knowledge – for example, how victims are conditioned, which triggers and cues are used to induce dissociation in victims and thereby cause amnesia concerning the acts of violence – is passed on from one generation to the next.

Where several siblings are involved, the division into victims, perpetrators, and a “neutral” link between the two within the sibling group may also be repeated in a similar manner across generations. For example, within a sibling group of one generation, 1 – 2 children, usually girls but sometimes boys, may be turned into victims by the perpetrator parents. Another child is turned into a perpetrator child, while the youngest child is raised as a “neutral” child who mediates between perpetrators and victims. These reprogramming processes and corresponding forms of indoctrination of the individual siblings begin in early childhood.

It is striking that, compared with perpetrator children, victim children are often highly intelligent and strong-willed individuals. In order to prevent these children – who are often chosen because the perpetrators themselves have narcissistic tendencies – from becoming a threat to the perpetrators, they are selected as victims and systematically suppressed, humiliated, and kept powerless.

The perpetrators themselves are highly manipulative and lead a double life outwardly.

How do the perpetrators specifically proceed?

As early as infancy and early childhood, the deliberate use of extremely brutal sexualized violence on a regular basis is used to induce dissociation, which is associated with corresponding triggers and cues. Later, the respective trigger or cue is sufficient to immediately cause the victim to dissociate. As a result, the victim experiences amnesia for the acts of violence that subsequently occur during the period of dissociation. The memories of the acts of violence therefore remain in a “black box” and cannot be consciously accessed by the victim in everyday life as an active memory. However, as part of a targeted trauma-focused treatment of the adult victim, it is possible to break open this black box, activate the previously enclosed memories of the acts of violence, and integrate them into normal procedural memory.

In addition, the perpetrators use targeted mind-control methods that result in comprehensive control over the victims. The objective is functionality and obedience. A prohibition against speaking about the abuse is also imposed.

The perpetrators also use training programs involving systematic conditioning of the victims, so that the victim can be controlled by the perpetrators at any time.

Victims who attempt to leave are subjected to pressure, blackmail, and pursuit.

Victim protection and prosecution of perpetrators

In order to prevent victims from being repeatedly located, pursued, stalked, and threatened by perpetrators, a restriction on the disclosure of the victim’s address should be registered with the local registration authority.
We advise victims to establish connections with various victim protection services in order to create as extensive a support network as possible.
The criminal police also strongly recommend documenting all acts, including the names of the perpetrators, in a written document and depositing it with a notary. If the victim is physically attacked, this document is to be forwarded immediately to the criminal police, and criminal proceedings for “Organized and Ritualized Sexualized Violence” are to be initiated against the perpetrators named in the document.
Many perpetrators feel very secure because they believe that there is supposedly no evidence. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, modern forensic medical methods can now be used to diagnose genital injuries sustained during childhood and attribute them to different forms of violence. The occurrence of dissociative disorders is also always an indication that extremely severe violence must have been repeatedly inflicted during childhood.
In addition, limitation periods have repeatedly been extended substantially, meaning that it is still possible to prosecute perpetrators even when the acts occurred a long time ago.
If the victim lives abroad and is located and sought out there again by the perpetrators, under the 1984 UN Convention against Torture (Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment), pursuant to Article 5(2), the (foreign) state in whose territory the perpetrator(s) are currently located establishes jurisdiction, regardless of the country in which the acts originally occurred. Stalking, pursuit, threats, including unwanted attempts to make contact, can also be prosecuted under international criminal law.