A man is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at Vogur, a detox-centre and hospital run by the National Centre of Addiction Medicine, RÚV reports. The girl’s mother says the incident has been a major shock, as the family trusted their child was safe inside the institution.
The girl was being treated for drug addiction in Vogur’s youth ward when an older patient sexually assaulted her two days in a row at the end of February. Employees of Vogur informed police and child welfare services of the incident.
The girl’s mother criticizes the lack of treatment options for youth struggling with addiction. Vogur is the only institution in Iceland offering such services for young people. Vogur Head Physician Valgerður Rúnarsdóttir says “I would like there to be more than us. Sometimes [the patients] are more sick than we can handle and need more support and maybe an isolated ward.”
