Social services at Tønder Council in southern Jutland have decided today to pay 300,000 kroner in damages to a 19-year-old girl who for years was the victim of violent and sexual abuse in her own home.

It's the first time ever that a local council has paid compensation to a citizen after considering itself an accomplice in the child neglect, and this precedent is likely to affect future incest cases.

Means a lot
"It means a lot to me that the council admits that its mistake damaged me," the girl told Politiken newspaper anonymously.

Together with her little sister, the girl was sexually abused by her father who later ‘rented’ them to strangers until the case was disclosed in 2005.

No intervention
Tønder Council did not intervene, even though other parents and teachers on several occasions had raised the alarm and reported the abuse of the girls.

Their story was known in the media as the 'Tønder case' and is one of the most reported incest cases in Denmark.