Irene Mihalic is calling for a hidden-case study into sexism at Germany’s Federal Police and Federal Criminal Police Office. The proposal is justified because recorded cases alone cannot show the scale of harm where people may decide not to report boundary violations.
The Green parliamentary group’s managing director made the call after a study into sexual assaults in the armed forces. According to Der SPIEGEL, Mihalic also pointed to the latest report by the federal police commissioner, Uli Grötsch, saying it had documented cases at the Federal Police and the Federal Criminal Police Office. She said a high number of unreported cases should still be assumed.
That is the gap a hidden-case study is meant to address. Rather than counting only complaints, criminal reports or internal files, it would ask about experiences that never entered any official record. This matters where employees may doubt that reporting within their institution will protect them or leave them without personal consequences. Known cases alone cannot establish either the prevalence or the pattern of sexism.
The armed-forces findings cannot be transferred to federal policing. But they make it reasonable to ask whether another federal security structure has its own reporting blind spot. The federal police commissioner already provides an independent channel; a sound survey could help direct prevention and protection more effectively, as Mihalic argued.
For now, however, this is a political demand, not a commissioned inquiry. The supplied reporting contains no commitment from the federal government and no details of a potential study’s sponsor, methodology, timetable or funding. The substantive question is therefore whether policymakers will turn the call to examine hidden cases into a systematic inquiry.
Sources
- Der Spiegel · Source date: 2026-11-12
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-12
Bundeswehr hidden-figure study: Why an independent hotline is needed