Inspection investigates abuses in foster care for young refugees

The Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate (IGJ) has started an investigation into abuses in foster care for young refugees. The reason for the step of the IGJ is a study by BNNVARA program Zembla To the shelter.

This shows that minor refugees who receive shelter in collection families are regularly neglected because they get too little food or are suddenly put back on the street. There is also mistreatment and unsafe situations.

Centrally in the revelations of Zembla is Nidos, the National Guardianship and Youth Protection Organization that is the only one ultimately responsible for the safety and well-being of young refugees who have arrived in the Netherlands without their parents.

The TV program spoke with more than forty residential counselors, teachers and (former) employees and youth protectors of Nidos. They ring the alarm bell. According to the interviewees, the screening of reception families that children with a residence status record is not in order. In an internal document from Nidos from July 2023, in the hands of Zemblait says that there are concerns about 40 percent of the reception families.

At the same time, youth protectors indicate that they are often unable to properly check whether everything is going well with the children in a shelter family. As an individual guardian, they have the responsibility for dozens of young people, which means that the workload is too high.

Employees also say in the program, which is broadcast on Sunday evening on NPO 2, that children are placed with families who are already known to have problems. For example, children had to go to families where the scab prevails. “Where a Dutch child would never be placed. But for Nidos that is good enough,” says one of them.

Another shares the example of a child who was injured during an invasion of an arrest team in the home of a reception family who was suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. And if there are signals in the meantime that a child is not doing well with a certain family, no action is taken. Reports of neglect or mistreatment would be picked up in lax due to the shortage of reception places.

In a response as a guardianship organization, Nidos says that it cannot comment on individual matters.

Experts are extremely critical in the broadcast of Zembla. “If there are signals of insecurity for whatever reason, then we must ensure that we bring those children to safety,” said Juvenile Law Mariëlle Bruning professor.

Emeritus professor of pedagogy Micha de Winter sees similarities with the conclusions he drew in 2019 on systemic violence in youth and foster care: “poor selection of families, poor supervision, insufficient guidance”.

Similar conclusions attracted healthcare and youth and justice and safety inspections also recently about circumstances in which the heavily abused foster girl from Vlaardingen was. Before that, two Syrian children were placed in this family: they were also mistreated and then removed by Nidos.

The inspections were critical of Nidos’s actions: the organization failed to continue a report of potentially criminal offenses and additional information about the foster family was not shared with another youth organization involved.

According to the whistleblowers who are opposite Zembla Their story did not only do the safety of reception families. For example, children who have not yet had residence status usually stay in AZCs or – if they are between 15 and 18 years old – in emergency. For example in hotels along highways. According to youth protectors there were also locations between where criminals are active.

“Girls disappeared systematically from different reception locations,” says one of them Zembla. “There were suspicions of human trafficking, but not much was done with it. Sometimes they came back with a blue eye. Whether some people went to drink chlorine. There were unwanted pregnancies, you don’t want to know.”

In addition to the announced research by the IGJ, Nidos also says that he himself starts a study: “In the coming weeks, Nidos will talk to all young people who live in reception families individually. This is how Nidos wants to get a picture of the experiences of young people. If the research by Nidos or the supervision of the inspection shows that things have to be different, Nidos naturally indicates a suitable follow -up”, said the organization.

Last year it turned out research From journalist collective, in Europe, more than 50,000 minor refugees in Europe have disappeared in Europe. Be in 2023 360 of these young people disappeared in the Netherlands, especially from the registration center in Ter Apel.