Kim Stellingwerf’s phone has been ringing red since the Hoogeveen told her story about her divorce and the aftermath of it last weekend. As a result, she advocates a quality mark for mediators. “Yes, it’s a bit of a madhouse. Dozens of people emailing and calling in a day, that’s quite a lot.”
In addition, the verification of a lawyer, who legally checked the text, was missing. “Many people recognize themselves in the story and also tell their story themselves,” she says about the emails and calls. “Then you hear the most harrowing things. People who don’t even see their children anymore or who are still litigating. Or have been trying to restore it for five or six years. Really shocking,”
In her view, there should be stricter control over the quality of mediators. Stellingwerf: “They will all mean well. Only: it is ignorance and that is why things go wrong, I think. And there should be a lawyer in between, who checks things. Well, that did not happen with us. At least, we never seen a lawyer. Let alone that I am sure that a lawyer has checked something. It is a revenue model and something is not going well there.”
With Stellingwerf and her husband, the mediator put the necessary things down on paper, but it turned out that the necessary things were lacking. “If it says: article A goes to Jantje and it says so in it, then I think that this has been properly arranged. But it still has to be sub a, sub b and sub c with legal terms. I don’t know that as a layman There is a lawyer for that to arrange that properly.”
Because all this was not well on paper, Stellingwerf was left empty-handed. “It didn’t look good afterwards, but then it has already been to the court and it has a stamp on it. And then you can jump high and low, too bad.” Stellingwerf says she was in an emotional mood and therefore told her ex: keep everything. “That’s what I said too. But one wonders if people in such an emotional state can make such rigorous decisions. I don’t think so.”
The ultimate goal is to bring the situation to the attention of the House of Representatives. “There is already a quality mark. There are mediators who are already registered, which are supervised. We have to wait and see how many responses there will be, but ultimately we want to bring this to the House.”