Dutch child welfare experts highlight the country’s ongoing struggle to recognise sustained and deliberate cruelty, such as child torture, calling for clearer criteria, training, and legal options to protect vulnerable children more effectively.
Dutch child welfare experts say the country is still struggling to recognise a form of abuse that goes beyond assault and neglect: sustained, deliberate cruelty inflicted over time. Reporting by Trouw, based on recent court cases and an NOS analysis of Dutch verdicts, suggests that some cases meet the hallmarks of child torture, a term used abroad for patterned physical and psychological abuse. In those cases, children were not only beaten or starved, but also humiliated, isolated and forced into degrading acts.
The issue has come into sharper focus after cases including the severely abused foster girl from Vlaardingen and, this week, the first procedural hearing in Groningen involving two mothers from Stadskanaal accused of repeatedly abusing their young son and daughter. According to the report, the children were locked in a cellar, made to eat their own vomit and, in the girl’s case, left so badly malnourished that she was taken to hospital and placed in a coma.
Leony Coppens, a clinical psychologist quoted by Trouw, said the number of cases identified so far is still far too low. She argued that Dutch professionals are only seeing the end point of a much longer process, when a case finally reaches the courts. Coppens said the United States has a clearer framework because it has an established term for child torture, which has enabled researchers and practitioners there to study prevalence and train staff more systematically.
That difference matters, because the Dutch system currently has no agreed criteria for distinguishing ordinary child abuse from torture, according to Coppens. The Landelijk Expertise Centrum voor Kindermishandeling, the national centre consulted by doctors in suspected abuse cases, said it assesses individual injuries from photographs but does not use the term child torture. Monique Trijbels, the centre’s medical director, said it would be useful if the Netherlands began studying the distinction more formally, partly because it could create legal options as well.
Research cited in the reporting suggests the problem may be broader than the public realises. A Dutch nationwide prevalence study published in the medical literature found 30 maltreated children per 1,000, with neglect the most common category. Another study on child torture in the US found that many offenders had prior violence histories and that most cases had already come to the attention of child protection services, although fewer than half had been substantiated. Separately, medical literature has long stressed the need for structured training so doctors, teachers and child protection workers can identify abuse sooner and document it properly.
Coppens said schools are often where the first warnings emerge, because children may describe being locked up, made to drink urine or showing unexplained bruises. But she said many younger professionals have been taught to focus on building trust with parents, even when those parents may be manipulating them. Her view is that the Netherlands needs clearer Dutch-language criteria, along with training for Veilig Thuis, youth protection staff and teachers, so that extreme abuse is recognised before it reaches the courtroom.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
