discrimination

The number of reports of sexual abuse and discrimination at Dutch schools increased last year. The Education Inspectorate received 134 reports of sexual abuse in the school year 2017/2018, the highest number in 15 years, NU.nl reports.

In nearly half of the reports about pupils being sexually abused, the accused perpetrator is someone who works at the school, such as a teacher or a member of the non-teaching staff, according to the Inspectorate. The number of reports about sexual harassment decreased, the Inspectorate said. 

The appeal in the hate speech case against PVV leader Geert Wilders will continue. The court in The Hague saw no reason to declare the Public Prosecutor inadmissible, as Wilders had requested. The court will, however, allow the defense to call former Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten, former head of the Public Prosecution Service Herman Bolhaar and a number of senior officials to testify as witnesses, NOS reports.

LGBTQ interest group COC is organizing a "Celebration of Love" in Amsterdam on Wednesday in response to the Dutch translation of the so-called Nashville declaration, which was signed by hundreds of Dutch pastors and other orthodox Christians. Mayor Femke Halsema will speak at the event, AT5 reports.

SGP leader Kees van der Staaij is sticking to the Nashville declaration, which he and hundreds of pastors of the Dutch Protestant Church signed, even after a storm of criticism. The declaration explicitly rejects homosexuality and transgender people, and suggests sexual orientation and gender are things people can be "cured" of. It also stresses that marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman.

A day after the first conviction for sexual harassment on the street, Rotterdam is expanding this regulation. The ban now also applies to harassing LGBTQ people, not only women, NOS reports.

State Secretary Tamara van Ark of Social Affairs and Employment wants to make it mandatory for companies to make policies that prevent discrimination against job applicants. To enforce this, the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate will be given more powers. The Inspectorate will be given the task to monitor companies' policies and issue penalties to employers who ignore the new obligation, ANP reports. 

Those who live in problem areas and break the law must be punished twice as harshly as those from another neighborhood who commit the same crime, according to VVD leader Klaas Dijkhoff. In this way he wants to force problem neighborhoods on the right path, he said to newspaper AD.

Dijkhoff will expand on his plan during the General Considerations, the parliamentary debate on next year's budget, on Wednesday.

One float in the Brabantsedag Heeze theater parade caused a bit of an uproar on Facebook. According to Sun Shain, who posted a video of the float in question on Facebook, it looks like a slave ship, carrying people in blackface makeup.

An Ugandan asylum seeker who was staying with the nuns of Missionaries of Charity in Amsterdam, was not allowed to return to the shelter after she revealed that she is a lesbian and helped with the Canal Pride Parade. RozeLinks, the GroenLinks branch focused on LGBTQ rights, is organizing a 'lesbian kissing-in' on August 8th, Savanna Koolen of Rozelinks said to Het Parool.

Housing association De Voorzorg in Hoensbroek discriminated against potential tenants between 2013 and 2016, according to forensic investigation by Integis. When talking to potential tenants, the housing association looked at things like race, appearance, health, sexual orientation, religion, ex-partners, hobbies and even body odor, and this played a role in the allocation of housing, NOS reports.

Lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops asked for the appeal in the hate speech case against Geert Wilders to be postponed on Thursday. The PVV leader needs more time for investigation, his lawyer said on the first of 11 days set aside for the appeal, NU.nl reports.