Finance Minister Christos Staikouras referred to the sensationalized complaints about child abuse at the Kivotos tou Kosmos hotel structure.

In an interview with Mega, he said that, by his own decision, he stopped any financial support that the Ministry of Finance provided to the structure.

“We are taking financial support until it is completed because obviously we want to support children, but we want to know where these resources are going,” the minister added.

“The complaints are shocking and require investigation. As a ministry, we have recently strengthened many of these structures to ultimately empower children,” he said.

In fact, according to Finance Ministry officials, the €50,000 aid provided by the ministry to the Ark of Peace is one-time, not regular.

According to the same figures, the assistance was provided as part of support to organizations from a special Covid account where donations were collected, while the procedure for withdrawing the decision to provide is now underway.

It is recalled that the police and prosecutors investigating this case have reports of at least two cases of sexual abuse of underage boys by a prominent member of an NGO. The first concerns, as published by “K”, the complaint of a 19-year-old boy who was previously held in the structures of “Kivotos” and allegedly became a victim of sexual exploitation in 2021. He gave a detailed statement to the police of the Sub-Department for the Protection of Minors on Wednesday evening, in which he mentioned a relationship he had with a particular member of an NGO, and also allegedly described a case of sexual abuse against him by the same person.

The second statement was made yesterday at Attica Security by an underage boy living in the Kivotos structure on the island of Chios, who complained that he witnessed the sexual abuse of his underage roommate by the same NGO member as 19 a year old boy named. The Chios incident took place in 2021, but the underage eyewitness refused to give evidence to EL.AS at the time, apparently in a state of fear. However, the disclosure of the case and the conduct of a preliminary investigation by the Sub-Department for the Protection of Minors created new data on the case, and the police and the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection formed an estimate that the number of complaints of abusive behavior would increase in the next interval.

As “K” reported yesterday, the investigation was launched five months ago by the Commissioner for Human Rights in connection with the investigation of an administrative offense. Over the past period, the Ombudsman’s staff received the first of two complaints of sexual violence. They handed him over to the prosecutor’s office, which, in turn, ordered the Security Service to conduct a preliminary check. However, yesterday the prosecution requested the materials of the case back as a sign of dissatisfaction with the announcement of the case.

Another child who lived in the “Kivotos” structure reports his personal experience to “K”. It talks about forced labor, exploitation and physical abuse. According to him, one of the Kivoto workers hit him, threw him to the floor, split his knee, an incident that occurred in 2017 at the Kivoto to Kosmos camp in Rafin. He also claims that after he became an adult and decided to leave Kivoto, the manager did not give him the documents. “They didn’t give me my documents, an identity card, a certificate of secondary education, so that I couldn’t find a job,” he emphasizes to K.