NETHERLAND
Radio Netherlands
The revelation that a number of minors abused in Dutch Roman Catholic institutions were forcibly castrated has shocked the Netherlands. It casts grave doubt upon the recent findings of a commission of inquiry. RNW’s Robert Chesal, who first brought the sex abuse scandal to light, argues that only parliament can be trusted to investigate further.
We now know that former Dutch cabinet minister Wim Deetman did not meet the expectations he raised when he chaired the commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church. He did not get to the bottom of the abuse scandal or reveal all he could find about the horrors that took place behind church doors in the Netherlands.
Whistle blowers punished
We know this thanks to investigative journalist Joep Dohmen of the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Dohmen wrote about a boarding school student who had been sexually abused by a Dutch monk. When the former student reported the abuse to the police, he was brought to a Roman Catholic psychiatric ward, declared a homosexual and then castrated. The same surgery was probably performed on at least ten other schoolmates of his who tried to blow the whistle on abuse.
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