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Add as a favourite source on Google Add DutchNews as a favourite source on GoogleJust two months after it was unveiled, the national youth care monument (Nationaal Monument Jeugdzorg) commemorating violence against young people in the system was vandalised in Apeldoorn.

“This feels like a new attack,” Naomi van Aggelen told broadcaster NOS. She worked for years on the monument and was herself wrongly sent to live at a youth care institution when she was 12 years old.

“It is a very sad sight,” she said of the monument meant to acknowledge the suffering of young people in care homes. “Actually, [it’s] a denial of that recognition.”

Located in Apeldoorn’s Zuiderpark, the wings of the monument – titled De Erkenning (The Recognition) – were broken off and are now missing while scratches and dents are visible on what remains.

“Who does such a thing? We have no idea,” said Van Aggelen. “We don’t know where the wings are.”

The council has filed a police report and is said to be reviewing if additional security measures are needed.

The monument was commissioned after a 2019 report by De Winter Commission that found since WW2, some 20,000 children were the victims of violence in youth care. The organising foundation calls it a place of reparation, remembrance and “of vigilance: all current forms of violence must also stop.”

The future of the monument is still unclear. “I have no idea if we should leave the work for what it is,” said Van Aggelen. “Maybe we should glue it, then it symbolises another broken child in youth care.”

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