Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Top stories
  • Health
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Tech
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Weird
  • 1-1-2
Image
Laurens Ivens
Laurens Ivens - Credit: Menno Herstel / WikiMedia Commons - License: CC-BY-SA
Crime
Politics
Laurens Ivens
inappropriate behavior
sexual harassment
Amsterdam
alderman
Saturday, 2 October 2021 - 17:10
Share this:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • whatsapp
  • reddit

Several women accuse Amsterdam alderman of inappropriate conduct

Not only women from the official organization in Amsterdam but also outside said they experienced all kinds of inappropriate conduct from Alderman for building and housing Laurens Ivens, Het Parool reported. The Amsterdam Alderman resigned in July due to offensive comments he made towards female colleagues.

He personally approached the only woman in a group of ten students who had a complaint about the safety of their residential complex. In an email he wrote to her: “I will gladly take a walk with you around the neighborhood.”

One woman who had been a speaker in a council meeting said that Ivens invited “just the two of them” on Facebook to lunch in his office. He sat “just too close” to her and began asking her questions about her personal life. She left within 20 minutes.

Between 2015 and 2020, Ivens “frequently sought personal conversations with women who turned to the municipality”.

“As a young woman, you felt what it was about,” a female officer said about Ivens’ behavior. “He asked a few times if I would go for a beer in the evening, it was behavior focused on intimacy.” On a different, occasion when she held a presentation for the police Ivens asked “if I thought men in uniforms were sexy. I got angry and told him I was not okay with this.”

An external investigation was launched last week into the conduct of Ivens. The investigation showed that women who complained about him were kept away from him as a solution. The reports of the undesirable behavior continued for a long time. The alderman resigned in July of this after four official reports were made at the beginning of this year.

Het Parool wrote that there will be a new protocol. It will include, among other points, that the mayor and municipal secretary will be immediately informed in the event of complaints about undesirable behavior by an official.

Reporting by ANP

Follow us:

Latest stories

  • One person found dead after major fire in business premises in Schellinkhout
  • Ajax pick up their first win since October in Heitinga’s debut
  • Philips restructuring: Massive layoffs and recall of sleep apnea devices
  • Police officer injured after being dragged more than 300 meters by car
  • Extinction Rebellion protest: 768 arrests made and 725 activists released
  • League leaders Feyenoord drop points away to FC Twente

Top stories

  • Dutch royal family under fire for “caricature insensitivity”
  • Prime Minister Mark Rutte will speak at Holocaust commemoration
  • A12 open again after Extinction Rebellion protest, more than 500 people arrested
  • Police intervenes Extinction Rebellion protest on A12; Dozens of people arrested
  • Rutte lashes out at left wing parties in election campaign interview
  • Netherlands and the US agree on export restriction of ASML chip machines

© 2012-2023, NL Times, All rights reserved.

Footer menu

  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • Partner content