Smiling photos cover darker truth; 5 children accuse mother of years-long abuse, neglect
Hendrika van G., a 44-year-old woman from Middelharnis, stood trial on Monday for structurally abusing and neglecting her five children for years. Almost daily photos show five smiling kids, neatly arranged by age. But the reality was quite different, the children told the police, Rijnmond reports.
The children describe their mother as unpredictable and irritable, saying she often subjected them to physical and verbal violence. One daughter said: “I always felt unsafe, sad, humiliated, rejected. My entire childhood I had the idea that I was different.” The young woman still struggles with PTSD and panic attacks.
The case came to light six years ago, when the youngest child ended up in the hospital with severe malnutrition. Immediately after admission, the child started eating and growing, but that stagnated again when she went home. Child Protection Services intervened and found a severely neglected household, with clutter everywhere and no space for the children to play.
Neighbors reported often hearing the woman shouting and the children, but also having almost daily photo shoots with them in the garden, even in the freezing cold or pouring rain. Youth care also later noticed that when the mother entered the room, the children immediately sat down in a row.
Child Protection Services removed all five children from the home in 2019 and placed them with foster families. There, they began to realize how different life could be and they started talking about the abuse and humiliation they experienced at home. According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), the abuse happened between 2006 and 2019, but because some of these crimes have reached their statute of limitations, the case only concerns the period 2013 to 2019. The children were between 3 and 18 years old at the time.
The OM demanded community service of 240 hours, a suspended prison sentence of three months, and three years of guidance and treatment against the woman. The woman received a sentence reduction because it took so long to bring the case to court. The OM also wants her to pay the damage claims from her children, two of whom have asked for 6,000 and 7,000 euros in compensation.
The court in Rotterdam will rule on March 3.
