The city of Rotterdam has announced a new policy to protect children who are being abused by their parents: remove the parent from the home, instead of the child.

Announcing the measures, Rotterdam Alderman Hugo de Jonge said, "This will give the family a valuable time-out, enabling us to organise help quickly and effectively".

The Rotterdam alderman says the old approach is the opposite of what should happen:

“The child is forced to leave his or her trusted environment, school and friends. That’s an incredibly invasive measure which should only be imposed in extremely threatening situations. The main thing is that we do not remove the child from a potentially violent situation, but rather the person who created it in the first place.”

The new restraining order will be imposed when professionals, such as teachers or kindergarten staff, have serious suspicions that the safety of a child is at stake. Mr De Jonge has reached an agreement with the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office on the implementation of the new policy, which will take effect after the summer.

Dykes instead of sandbags
The director of the "No Kidding" Network against Child Abuse, Friso van der Wal, has mixed feelings about Rotterdam's new rules.

"I approve of any form of attention given to child abuse. The good thing about the new regulations is that the child is given a signal that the abuse is not his or her fault. That is what children often think."

But Mr Van der Wal has his doubts about the effectiveness of the scheme.

"It is just an instrument, as the alderman said. It has limited value. Child abuse is an incredibly huge and complex problem. I sometimes compare it to rising waters which are being kept out using just a little sandbag. Instead of such an instrument, what you really need are tall dykes."

The measure is only invoked after the abuse has taken place, Mr Van der Wal said. "What we need is prevention." He has written a prevention plan and will keep campaigning to increase awareness of child abuse.

In every classroom
Rotterdam Alderman Hugo de Jonge reminded his audience on Friday that child abuse is widespread:

“Figures show that one in 30 children is the victim of child abuse. That means each and every classroom has at least one child in it that is facing a precarious situation at home.”

Up until now, the authorities have only occasionally imposed a restraining order barring parents from entering their own homes. It's only done when the parent also abused his or her partner.

Compared to the traditional approach in which the child is placed in foster care, removing the parent instead has the advantage of causing minimal disruption to the child. The Rotterdam council says it will actively seek to use this type of restraining order as a complement to existing policies whenever possible.

(gsh, rk/)