Preventing Child Abuse

Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen said communication between the responsible agencies had to be improved so that a child "would not be lost in a vacuum of responsibility."

The project would first be introduced in November in five cities in the country's north, where Bremen is located, she said on a television talk show. Starting in 2007, the project would be expanded to four more of Germany's 16 states. It was expected to cost 10 million euros ($12.5 million), she said.

The government had already recognized that child neglect was a problem and had set up a working group to tackle it at the beginning of the year, Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said in an interview in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper on Friday. The experts' recommendations on how to improve cooperation and communication between all parties were expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Billions not millions

Child protection organization Deutsche Kinderhilfe Direkt welcomed the plan to establish an early warning system but said it was too little and that billions, not millions, of euros were necessary to make a difference. There are too few care facilities for children in danger of abuse causing the childcare agencies to put off removing them from their families as long as possible, according to the group's head, Georg Ehrmann.

"Developing care facilities costs real money," he said.

The Deutsche Kinderschutzbund, another child protection organization, said new legislation wasn't necessary to protect kids from neglect, but that the existing laws needed to be applied.

Kevin's body was found on Tuesday. A family court had ordered that the boy be taken away from his father, a known drug addict prone to violent outbursts, but officials were too late to save him.