Suddenly the number was on the last Monday site of the Central Bureau of Statistics to find. It was contained in a simple table that Statistics Netherlands drew up at the request of the Ministry of Justice and Security. After a column in de Volkskrant Last September, MPs had asked about the number of custodial placements among families affected by the Allowance Affair. Now, for the first time, there was an answer: 1,115.
The figure in the table did not go unnoticed for long and sparked outrage this week.
Of course 1.115 is a number with caveats. CBS only looked at ‘recognized’ victims of the Allowances affair, from the years 2015 to 2020, and only included custodial placements that involved a judge. In addition, Statistics Netherlands did not investigate the causes of out-of-home placements. The figures therefore do not tell you whether there is a connection between the custodial placement and debt problems due to the Allowances Affair.
Every year, approximately twenty thousand children are placed out of their homes in the Netherlands. This should be a last resort when their development is at risk. Debt, experts said this week in NRC, can never in itself be a reason for separating parents and children. The removal of a child on the grounds of poverty affects the right to respect for family life, as enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The stories of parents who got into serious trouble due to the harsh policy of the Tax Authorities and who also lost their children, show that it is not always clear what is cause and what is effect. “If you don’t have money to take care of your children, you become depressed,” according to one victim. “Then a report to Safe at Home is quickly made. For many people it is a snowball effect.”
Agnes Picture (46): ‘I knew I wasn’t a bad mother’
The bailiff took Agnes Plaatje’s things with him. Then the judge assigned her daughter to her ex. “She had everything with him.”
‘In 2005 I had a perfectly normal life. I lived in Coevorden, worked 32 hours a week and my daughter went to school. One day I received a letter from the tax authorities: I had received too much childcare allowance. They reclaimed everything. Soon more letters arrived. Attacks of thousands, tens of thousands of euros. I don’t know exactly, it came down to something like 30,000 euros in total.
“I immediately started writing objections. But everything I sent was lost. A few times I drove to the office of the tax authorities in Heerlen to personally hand over the documents. I got a stamp, an acknowledgment of receipt. Still, letters and phone calls kept coming that my belongings would be seized. I called the tax telephone line endlessly. ‘But I submitted proof, didn’t I? I’ve been to your desk. How can you do this?’ They weren’t interested. It was so bad, so humiliating.
“During the time that all this was going on, my ex-husband was going to give me a hard time in court. He wanted our daughter to live with him, asked for full custody. There was an investigation by the Child Protection Board. They saw me in an almost empty house, because my belongings had been taken by the bailiff. The situation was obviously not good for my daughter. The judge put her out of the house with her father. She had everything with him. She was then seven years old.
Also read: Show eviction placements: size of the Allowance affair not yet fully visualized
“I was allowed to see her for a few hours a week, under supervision. Everyone in the community center was nasty to me. I was ignored and observed. Sometimes I had no money and no transport, then I couldn’t come. At such moments I was deeply ashamed. I knew I wasn’t a bad mother, but I had a hard time explaining it. Tax? Surcharges? It didn’t tell people anything.
“When my second daughter was born in 2008, I was in survival mode. The tax authorities were still after me, my second marriage also broke down. I had a job for a while, but because my allowances were withheld, I could no longer afford childcare. When at one point a lady from youth care came over, I put all the papers on the table. Look, I said, this is the problem. I want to work but I can’t, because they seize everything. She didn’t seem to understand. All she said was, How are you going to fix this? What are you going to do about it?
“It’s hard to talk about what happened after that. I also have holes in my memory, I have some things tucked away. One day in 2016 my mother came by and I gave my youngest daughter to her. “You should stay with grandma for a while,” I said. I went to Belgium, a former colleague helped me. Yes, I actually just ran.
“I wanted to protect my daughter. I couldn’t help it, the pressure had increased little by little. The bailiff would come to empty my house again and I sensed everything that youth care was planning to intervene: they were working towards an out-of-home placement. I stayed in Belgium for almost three years. I found a job pretty quickly and got a visa through my employer. When I think about it now, it’s like a bad movie. Nobody knew what was going on in my life. I just cried and worked.
“My youngest daughter has been taken care of by my brother, a wonderful man, in recent years. She’s supposed to come back to me, but I’m not okay yet. This year I had surgery for a neck hernia – suffered from stress, I think – the rehabilitation takes a very long time. My oldest is not doing well. She’s on drugs and won’t talk to anyone. She’s mad at me, I haven’t seen her in six months. She doesn’t know what the Benefits affair is.
“This is the first time I’ve talked about this in such detail. I think it’s exciting, but I don’t want to hide anymore. I still live with a great sense of guilt, I have been so beaten that I have done something wrong. I knocked on doors everywhere and asked for help, I screamed and begged at authorities and the municipality. I’m crushed by the system. It’s only now beginning to dawn on me that I wasn’t the only one. What I can’t comprehend: this is not a computer error, people have been involved in this.
“According to the municipality where I lived until recently, I fall under the Catshuis scheme. I was supposed to get 30,000 euros, but I’ve never seen that money and I honestly have little faith in it. I recently heard that children affected by the Allowances Affair are also compensated. I wonder how they’re going to do that. Looking for my addicted daughter and asking her bank account number?”
Nadine Tavares Monteiro (33): ‘I now know one thing for sure: I’m not crazy’
Nadine Tavares Monteiro was under enormous stress due to attacks by the tax authorities. Then her children were removed from home.
‘I was heavily pregnant with my second child when the first threatening letters from the tax authorities fell on the mat. I had to repay almost 3,000 euros within a few days. I would not have transferred that amount to the childcare that my oldest son G. went to five days a week in 2013.
“Although I kept telling the tax authorities over and over that I had transferred the amount to the now bankrupt childcare and sent the supporting documents, they did not believe me. I was treated like crazy on the phone. “Then you shouldn’t have cheated,” they said. I could not believe my ears. Fraud? What are they talking about, I thought. I then made a payment arrangement with them to get rid of it. It was quiet for a year.
“All benefits stopped in 2016. I got nothing more. No health care allowance, no childcare allowance, no income tax refund. Nothing. My debts amounted to tens of thousands of euros. I ended up in poverty and that caused me stress. My kids got that. Especially my oldest. He was ten and saw how I was on the phone with the tax authorities every day.
“At the end of February, my stress was so high that I beat my son. We had gone to the cinema that day with a friend and her son. Once at home G. became annoying and I hit him on his calf. His father, with whom I do not have a good relationship, saw the bruise, took a picture of it and later passed this on to school and Safe Home, as I later read in the file. And then it went fast.
Also read: Without court order, her son was removed from home, ‘I didn’t know what happened to me’
“On Friday March 11, 2016, I took my children to daycare before I went to my internship. I was a third-year HBO social work and services and I did an internship at a mental health institution in Spijkenisse. When I went to pick up my children from the daycare again, the location manager gave me a post-it with the address of Safe Home on it. I had to go there right away, she said. “It’s about your children.”
“I was told there that my children would be removed from home because I mistreated them. Safe Home thought they were no longer safe with me. Two weeks later, the judge would make a final decision. I was no longer allowed to see my children. G. went to his father and T., then one year old, to my sister. There was nothing more I could do.
“I felt weak. Been crying all weekend. But I didn’t feel like a victim. Those were my children. I had to fight for them. But to no avail. The court ruled that both my children were removed from home.
“I live opposite G’s primary school. Every day I had to watch him walk to school from the window. All I could do was wave at him. T. was allowed to return home after three months. But G. is still not with me after five years. He is now fifteen.
“The eviction has torn my family apart. I have two children who do not know each other and have no connection with each other. G. was a caring and warm child. Now I don’t recognize him anymore. He has become a rebellious teenager who does what he likes. I haven’t been able to love him for five years. And now I look at him and I see a young man whom I have not seen form. That hurts me.
“I have always worked and studied. I didn’t have much money, but I could do fun things with my kids. I was always looking for discounts. But things changed when I got into financial trouble.
“Sometimes I think: if I hadn’t gotten into trouble with the tax authorities, if I hadn’t been labeled a fraud, everything would have turned out differently. Then I would have had the money to hire a good lawyer. Then I would be heard by Safe Home, Youth Care and the Child Protection Board. All these agencies have not listened to me. They didn’t give me a fair chance. I was blacklisted by the tax authorities. An image of me had already been painted. They only looked at my financial situation.
“I don’t know how to put all this together yet. Last year I received 30,000 euros back from the tax authorities. I call it sus money. Because that’s it. I paid off my debts with it. That gave me some air. But then you hear again that you didn’t have to use that money for debt. Then you get angry.
“The Netherlands should be a country where children always come first. I have not experienced this. But one thing I know for sure: I’m not crazy. I just couldn’t prove it. Because what do you want to do on your own against the biggest crook?
“I want other victims to talk too. These are probably also mothers who worked very hard and were never seen as human beings by the tax authorities.”
#debts #due #Allowances #affair #child #home