Pleegzorg
Background Visual ART Foster Care
Anyone who wasn't allowed by the government policy to live with their own parents - whether or not based on lies- was 'entrusted to the state' and came in a residential institution or foster care. You could be lucky if foster parents were friendly and loving. For many children who had already experienced a lot, it turned out that the opposite they came "from the drop in the rain".
Foster care was much cheaper for the Dutch government than an institution: a foster child cost ten times less, while foster parents received considerable amounts per child: with a third foster child they even received a bonus!
Foster care mainly served to turn 'the child of bad parents' into a' neat citizen, where all (violent) means were permitted. Foster parents could be selected from the police and the army in order to actually apply violence and discipline. Foster families could easily degenerate into 'temples of violence and destruction' covered by pious goals and neat appearances. The aim of foster care was no longer the normal education of a foster child, but the only goal was to completely demolish the emotional life, originality and existence of the foster child.
With the Carte Blanche of the government in their hands foster parents were allowed ot do whatever they wanted against a foster child. Causing physical or permanent psychological injury to a foster child did not matter: it was all about the goal.
As a 'child of just someone else', the foster child was missing any form of protection based on human or children's rights. In their stratgies to break foster children, gender, origin, originality and religion often played a major role.
Anyone then completely demolished, detached and dismantled by the youth care system, when leaving, did not have to count on any support or understanding in society. On the contrary, government, institutions and society often responded from contempt and aggression to disqualified (former) foster children, who had to find their way in a society where they always have been regarded as scum and lesser people. Many ended up outside society and could no longer build up for life.
The Dutch government (Public Prosecutor and Ministry of Justice) often took great hostile to former youth care children and prevented lawsuits against foster parents or institutions, afraid that their share and responsibility would become visible. This resulted in marginalization, ignoration and exclusion of thousands of foster children and former foster children.
In 2022, the work "Violence in youth care" was shown in Maastricht during the exhibition On the Edge. The work made in mixed media in size 179cm x 78 cm depicts forms of mistreatment and the extent to which it happened. In total, many hundreds of works have been made in the theme 'Violence in Jeudgzorg', as a form of processing and storytelling.
