Appeal to therapists: don't take enough with Grapperhaus' answers about pedosexual ritual abuse!

9/4/2020 8:33 AM

Honourable members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Security, 

The undersigned, practitioners in the mental health care, are or have been involved with clients who have been abused in a sadistic pedosexual network. We would like to thank you for the parliamentary questions you have asked in response to the broadcast of Argos on ritual abuse in such a network, respectively. about the functioning of the National Expertise Bureau on Special Cases. At the same time we would like to urge you not to settle for the answers given by Mr Grapperhaus to the first series of parliamentary questions. We will list 4 reasons for this below. But first a brief word about our involvement in this issue. 

As a therapist, our goal is to help (sometimes very seriously damaged) people to recover. In case of sexual abuse, reporting it is not our goal and usually not a subject in therapy. Most victims of sexual abuse, especially within the setting in question, do not even think about reporting it. This is because, for various reasons, they do not trust the police and the courts, the way the interrogations are conducted can be very re-traumatizing, the chance of reprisals from the pedosexual network is very high and the chance of convicted offenders (and therefore an increase in safety) is very small. The establishment of the LEBZ in 1999 has further diminished the poor chances of victims of ritual abuse of legal protection in our democratic state.  

For the following 4 reasons we would like to ask you to use your influence to thoroughly revise or abolish the LEBZ and to start new research into the occurrence of ritual abuse within organized sadistic (pedosexual) networks. 

1. Most (former) members of the LEBZ are demonstrably seriously biased.

Suppose you own a Tesla and have been violently pulled from your car by a criminal, which has left you with a spinal cord injury. Would you have much faith in the law, if your report is passed by a committee of 14 medical 'experts' of which by far the largest part does not believe in the existence of car thieves and moreover believes and publishes about the fact that people with a spinal cord injury do not realize that they create their symptoms themselves or that their doctor has talked them into a spinal cord injury?

This is how things stand with the LEBZ. Peter van Koppen (ex-member) in his mail to Argos called their research on ritual abuse among other things 'a danger to public health'. Paul van den Eshof in (member until 2019) says in the 2016 EMDR magazine among other things: 'ritual abuse is mainly a media hype from the 1990s'. Ineke Wessel in a documentary by the Knowledge Centre on Transgenerational Violence makes similar highly biased statements. If we look at the publications of many of the current members (e.g. Van den Hout, Huntjens, Otgaar, Raymaekers, Horselenberg, Wessel), much of it appears to be about 'false memories', a psychological phenomenon that was blown up enormously in the eighties in order to undermine the credibility of women who reported ritual abuse. Van den Hout even included it in the title of his book 'hervonden herinnering en andere misverstanden' (Resumed Memories and Other Misconceptions), in which he declares ritual abuse to be nonsense and puts it on a par with the belief in abductions by extraterrestrial beings. There seems to be a long line of mainly theoreticians and study-room scholars. This while there are many very experienced practitioners and theorists who have a completely different point of view. Why are they not asked for the LEBZ? If it is also considered that the LEBZ trains the entire police force when it comes to distinguishing false reports, you realize that as a paraplegic victim of the Tesla theft, you have a better chance of getting justice through your medical college than a victim of ritual abuse in the Netherlands.  

2. As a result of the broadcast of Argos, the official goal of LEBZ has changed..

This is a clear cover up: change the letter, of course, does not change the heart. The original purpose - to prevent unjustified accusations against possible perpetrators of ritual abuse - has been removed and replaced. The police indicate that this was never the intention. Of course, the fact that for decades the members of the LEBZ failed to note that their official objective was, "to prevent wrongful accusations against possible perpetrators" is in itself completely implausible. And a disqualification for the members of the LEBZ who apparently did not read their own objective. But that's not how things are: it's just a lie. Sanne Terlingen shows on Twitter that in 2012 an official police presentation states exactly the same (and only!) objective: 'the timely identification of false accusations'. This document can also be found on the internet, https://www.ggdghorkennisnet.nl/?file=8397&m=1335954778&action=file.download   

3. Not investigating pedosexual networks linked to ritual abuse is a choice of Grapperhaus that costs children's lives.

The large German moral case that is currently running (see note 1), shows that the more one searches, the more one finds. The fact that a simple call results in 140 reactions from victims who speak of ritual abuse/sadistic (pedo)sexual abuse, says enough. In addition, the fact that the Netherlands is known as a large digital distributor of child pornography should be reason enough for the police to follow the German police. With these data in mind, it is very unlikely that organized pedosexual violence, whether or not in the context of ritual abuse, stops at the border. Grapperhaus' argument that only 3 reports of ritual abuse have been made in the past 7 years (answering question 3 and question 7) is therefore an urgent reason to search more actively, rather than an argument not to investigate.

4. Research, including how to make the judicial process more accessible to victims, is very much needed..

Franziska Schubiger, chief of police in Germany, for instance conducted a study on improved truth finding with complex traumatized victims of sexual violence (note 2). The focus was on victims of Ritual Abuse with a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DIS). She pleads for improvement of interrogation methods. This is desperately needed, also in the Netherlands, to make it possible for these kind of victims to go to court. 

I sincerely hope that you will not allow yourselves to be taken for a ride, but will not be satisfied with the victims that we and our colleagues are treating. 

The last undersigned, Aline Terpstra, is willing to give an oral explanation. 

Kind regards, 

Mrs A. (Aline) Terpstra-van Hijum (contact person)

GZ-psychologist BIG

Anonymous

Mrs. drs. Boogaard-Blom,

Physician-Psychotherapist BIG

Mrs A.F. Denekamp-van Toor

occupational therapist

BCZ registered therapist

Ms T.A. (Talitha) van Neerbos, 

(child and adolescent) psychiatrist BIG

Mr. dr. R.J. (Rens) Filius, 

psychotherapist BIG

Ms H. Mateboer-Selles

GZ-psychologist BIG

note 1. https://www.vpro.nl/argos/media/afleveringen/2020/uitzending-27-juni-ritueel-misbruik.html

note 2. https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/spil-in-duitse-megamisbruikzaak-getuigt-achter-gesloten-deuren-over-gruwelijk-misbruik-dochtertje~a2694042/?referrer=https://www.bing.com/search?q=30.000+duitse+zedenzaak&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=30.000+duitse&sc=0-13&sk=&cvid=615D9944AFE94AB0A24207C2748D5CE3

note 3. https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/nieuws/2020/recherchechef-franziska-schubiger-waarheidsvinding-slachtoffers-seksueel-geweld.html

note 1. https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/spil-in-duitse-megamisbruikzaak-getuigt-achter-gesloten-deuren-over-gruwelijk-misbruik-dochtertje~a2694042/?referrer=https://www.bing.com/search?q=30.000+duitse+zedenzaak&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=30.000+duitse&sc=0-13&sk=&cvid=615D9944AFE94AB0A24207C2748D5CE3

note 2 https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/nieuws/2020/recherchechef-franziska-schubiger-waarheidsvinding-slachtoffers-seksueel-geweld.html