Selma advises victims of serious crimes. ‘Then your life is turned upside down and the press wants everything’

Hetharia regularly drives from Friesland back to her hometown of Nederhorst den Berg, near Hilversum, with the volume knob turned up. Recover from the hours of conversations with victims and relatives. “Then I make disco in my car, just a bit uptempo, cheerful, happy songs.”

For On behalf of the Family, she has been assisting victims and surviving relatives for more than two years. She is one of fourteen media advisors who are on hand on behalf of the Family for matters that may receive a lot of attention. Hetharia often takes on that task in Friesland. For example, she was an advisor to the family of Lisette Elzinga from Heerenveen, who died in 2021.

It was a matter that was difficult for her to let go of. “That’s also because I grew up there. Her family lives in the same neighborhood where I lived and it happened around the corner from where my best friend lived.”

Education

Imagine: your child or partner has just died or you are a victim of rape and suddenly a journalist is at your door. “About 95 percent of the people we guide have never had to deal with media. They are then very vulnerable and find it very difficult to say: ‘I don’t want that’. Then they still have the idea that they have to do something, but it is not necessary.”

What she does? She is the point of contact for journalists and prepares interviews. She also speaks when families want to say something, but do not want to stand in front of a rolling camera. Sometimes its only role is to protect the privacy of families who do not want to share anything, such as in the case of child abuse. “Then I am a kind of watchdog.”

Perhaps the most important work is providing information. About what the media want and what victims and relatives do and do not have control over. When someone is murdered, it’s news. “I don’t see the media as an enemy from which they need to be protected. I also think you need each other and it’s just how it works. I understand that side. I am not going to stop publications, but I do think it is important that reporting is done respectfully and carefully.”

School newspaper

The fact that she understands how journalism works may be because she once wanted to become a journalist herself. During her high school years, she was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper of OSG Sevenwolden in Heerenveen, where she lived between the ages of 8 and 18. “I like stories. I am also curious and I enjoyed writing.”

When Behalf of the Family was founded almost five years ago, some journalists were skeptical. “They thought: will there be another link? We’re really not looking forward to that. But I notice that they often like it now, because they feel burdened or find it difficult to ask if people want to cooperate.”

Recently a journalist told Hetharia that she has a role that was always missing. “Because there is spokesperson from the police, the Public Prosecution Service, the court, but there was nothing for victims.”

What about lawyers and Victim Support Netherlands? “We are really media experts. That’s a different expertise. There are lawyers who can do a great job, but it is also nice that they can focus on their core task.”

Victims are often happy with attention from journalists. “If they can tell their story, it gives them some peace and sometimes it also marks the end of a period.”

Friction

It sometimes leads to friction. If journalists want more than the victims, for example. For example, she represented a minor victim in a rape case. The girl wanted to read her victim statement without an audience and therefore without media. “At one point I was called by a journalist who wanted the statement in advance. I said, ‘There’s a chance that media will have to leave the room, so I’m not going to give it to you.’ He became really huge pissed : ‘We’ll see about that sometime.’ That is also part of it.”

In the same case there was also a discussion about the age of the victim. Hetharia asked the journalist not to mention her age, because that would make it easy for people around her to identify her. “Then you really see a difference in journalists. Some of them understand that and other journalists don’t.”

Lottery

The work for On behalf of the Family is not a full-time job. Through her own communications and coaching company, she does communications jobs for, among others, Randstad Group Netherlands and previously for the municipality of Amsterdam and the National Postcode Lottery.

The funny thing is, says Hetharia, that her nine years of experience as a communications manager and spokesperson for that lottery were very instructive for what she does now. “There I was also a kind of media advisor, but for people who won a lot of money at once. Then your life is turned upside down and the press wants everything.”

Many people enjoyed talking about it. “But others had all kinds of reasons for not wanting to do that, for example because they had bad contact with an ex. You sometimes had journalists who would bang on the windows and ring the doorbells of people who had just been surprised and I would sometimes jump in there, saying: no, they don’t want this.”

Hetharia has noticed that Frisians often think: everything will work out fine, we will do it without an advisor. “From: I don’t need all that. And then later think: oh yes, it is useful.”

Celebrate life

The cases she does for the Family are often tough. “You visit people who have lost their child or whose child has been abused or who have themselves become the victim of a sexual crime. That won’t leave you in the cold.”

So she processes it by listening to music in the car on the long way back or by seeking out the silence. “By riding horses, walking through the forest or paddle boarding on the Vecht River. The work puts many things into perspective. It makes me realize that life is so short and fragile. Celebrate life.”