Countless, penetrating conversations to ‘get rid of’ your sexual orientation. Be told that you have ‘demonic’ feelings, are put under heavy and structurally pressure. ‘Femke’ was only thirteen when this happened to her, Songül Mutluer (GroenLinks-PvdA) told on Wednesday evening during a parliamentary debate on conversion therapy, or ‘homogenement’. “Femke is now 36 years old. But she is still not fully recovered, “said Mutler.
The parties did agree that ‘homogenement’ does not heal, but rather harms. And yet there seems to be no chamber majority for a ban, because Coalition party NSC and opposition party CDA did not support that.
In the past three years, D66, VDD, GroenLinks-PvdA, SP and the Party for the Animals have worked on a bill to make the giving of conversion therapy punishable to minors.
This therapy is given in, among other things, some Pentecostal municipalities and other evangelical circles. The goal is to ‘heal’ transgender people and homosexuals. The ‘treatment’ can consist of conversations, ‘expeling demons’ or even to the administration of electroshocks.
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CDA
After advice from the Council of State and a scientific test, the initiative law was discussed for the first time in the Lower House on Wednesday evening. “It has been three years to take steps, it must be a clear signal that we will not deal with minors,” said co-inventor Wieke Paulusma (D66).
The initiators had hoped for the support of NSC and CDA. Paulusma: “The CDA has written in its own election program that they are for banning conversion therapy. It has also signed the Regenboogstembus agreement, which contains a ban on ‘homogenement’ and of which this bill is part. ” But CDA and NSC believe that ‘vague concepts’ are used in the bill. In this way they find the “definition” of homogenement unclear.
CDA and NSC believe that the proposal contains ‘vague concepts’, including the ‘definition’ of homogenement
This can lead to “action of action among care providers,” the parties say. And that could stand in the way of psychological help to minors who are needed. The bill could lead to the fact that “psychologists and gender psychologists, social and pastoral workers, teachers, coaches and youth workers are limited in their movement space,” said Jesse Six Dijkstra of NSC.
The Public Prosecution Service has informed the Chamber that the law “has been formulated sufficiently concretely” to “offer tools for enforcement, investigation and prosecution.”
But that enforcement of the prohibition remains a different point of care for NSC and CDA. They would rather see that enforcement does not focus on performed “actions” of alleged “homogeneers,” but rather on the “caused damage” to victims. According to the parties, that is “more clearer”.
NSC and CDA hope to better guarantee this distinction in another law to “reduce the uncertainty.” They want to do this in a law that State Secretary for Justice and Security Ingrid Coenradie (PVV) is currently working on, around the criminalization of psychological violence.
Detour
NSC acknowledges that the route can take longer via Coenradie than the bill for a prohibition that is now in front of it. VVD and D66 see nothing in a detour. According to Bente Becker (VVD), victims are so abandoned: “Then you can only report it if you are immediately psychologically damaged. And the people we do this cannot wait any longer. “
Just like the NSC and CDA, the BBB is critical of the bill, but has not yet taken a definitive position, says MP Marieke Wijen-Nass.
After the debate, it remained clear that the bill cannot count on sufficient support for the time being. There is only a majority for “the Spirit” of the law.
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