NETHERLANDS
Radio Netherlands
Published on 19 March 2012
The health authorities in the predominantly Catholic provinces of Brabant and Limburg apparently knew that institutions for the mentally handicapped were involved in forcible castrations in the 1950s.
Regional newspaper De Limburger published a report on Monday based on minutes taken at board meetings during that period. Parents were reportedly never informed of the castrations – or at best only later.
The paper writes that representatives of the provincial health authorities regularly attended board meetings of the Limburg and Brabant Catholic psychiatric institutions. Castration was openly discussed. Minutes from these meetings show that, although adult patients had to give their permission for the procedure, in practice there was nothing voluntary about it.
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