VIENNA, Oct 4, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The director of SOS Children's Villages, an 
international charity for orphaned and abandoned children, has been suspended 
following allegations of abuse at facilities in Austria, the supervisory 
board said on Saturday.

Christian Moser, who has headed the organisation for 17 years, has been 
relieved of all his duties pending the findings of an external audit.

Separately, Austrian prosecutors said last week they had launched a probe 
after reports of alleged child abuse at a care facility run by Austria-based 
SOS Children's Villages, which has 572 branches in more than 130 countries.

"The supervisory board believes that child protection, transparency and 
dealing with the facts are an absolute priority," said Irene Szimak, 
chairwoman of the supervisory board of SOS Children's Villages Austria.

The charity said on September 17 it was launching an external audit of its 
procedures after weekly magazine Falter published a report alleging children 
had been mistreated at its Moosburg facility in southwestern Austria between 
2008 and 2020.

Falter alleged that children and teenagers were beaten, locked up and 
photographed naked for years.

The alleged abuse was never made public despite a detailed internal report in 
2020.

Since the Falter report, there have been similar allegations about the 
children's villages in Imst in Tyrol and Seekirchen near Salzburg.

Prosecutors in Klagenfurt, Innsbruck and Salzburg are now investigating.

Moser has, as yet, not reacted publicly to his suspension.

In 2022, SOS Children's Villages said a major donor had been implicated in 
child sex abuse at one of its facilities in Asia.

The previous year, the charity said it was investigating cases of violence, 
particularly sexual violence, and fraud committed from the 1990s onwards in 
around 20 of its operations in Africa and Asia.