Netherlands still not doing enough to protect children from violence: Monitor
The Netherlands is still not doing enough to listen to children and protect them against unsafe environments and violence. The government also lacks a clear picture of how many children are growing up in unsafe situations, according to the Children’s Rights Collective’s annual Monitor. The organization will stage a demonstration at parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
Figures from the domestic violence and child abuse aid organization Veilig Thuis show that the number of reports and requests for advice regarding child abuse has risen from nearly 63,000 in 2020 to over 68,000 in 2025. The overall understanding of the extent of such violence remains limited and fragmented, the collective said.
The Children’s Rights Collective monitors compliance with children’s rights in the Netherlands. Its members include organizations such as Defence for Children, Kinderpostzegels, Save the Children, Terre des Hommes, the Netherlands Youth Institute, and various other civil society organizations.
The number of children receiving youth care has also increased in recent years. In 2020, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported that over 402,000 children were receiving youth care. By 2025, that figure was over 465,000 children, though it fell slightly from the previous year.
The collective describes this as a “persistent problem” that not only affects children who the authorities don’t know about yet, but also those already receiving support from agencies such as child protection services. "Having a case file or being part of a support program does not automatically mean that a child is truly heard, believed, and protected," the collective said.
Child protection agencies are currently permitted to draft their own guidelines. According to the collective, this approach lacks sufficient accountability. “We want the government to urgently introduce a legal standard to ensure that ongoing, meaningful contact between professionals and children becomes the norm - and a mandatory requirement.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the organization will set up pillars equipped with headphones near the House of Representatives, allowing politicians and passersby to listen to stories about children. These accounts—shared by a parent, a teacher, and a care professional—serve to illustrate the findings presented in the monitor.
This monitor comes on the heels of a Dutch children’s home in Spain being closed down by the Spanish authorities. Former residents of the home have been describing practices akin to child torture to the authorities since 2016, Nieuwsuur revealed. Yet the home continued to receive government subsidies, and child protection organizations continued to place children there.
It also follows several recent cases of severe child abuse, including two mothers in Stadskanaal accused of torturing their children, and two foster parents in Vlaardingen convicted of abusing a girl to the point of her ending up in a coma in hospital. The child is left with permanent disabilities. In both cases, aid organizations were already involved with the children.
Over the past five years, there have been at least 12 cases of children being so severely abused that it was classified as torture.