Travelers on blacklist at municipalities: national watchdog is investigating | Inland

The Netherlands has an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 caravan dwellers. It is sensitive that they are explicitly mentioned on a checklist.

The Office of the National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism (NCDR), which took a hard line last week about the way in which the tax authorities profiled, is reason to conduct an investigation. ,,We don’t know this list yet, but we will certainly take a good look at it,” said spokesman Maarten Hagg.

Lawyer Sjoerd Jaasma, who specializes in caravan matters, already has a clear opinion. “This is of course stigmatizing and even discriminatory it seems to me. Equal cases should be treated equally and that doesn’t seem to be happening here.”

The list that many municipalities work with, such as Putten and Zwolle, appears to have been drawn up by the Ministry of Justice and Security. That doesn’t seem to be the problem for now. According to a spokesperson, the method is a first step to test the value of a signal.

The municipality of Putten is now aware of the problem. “We can without doubt imagine that the text in the checklist is experienced as stigmatizing. We intend to adjust this,” said spokesman Fokko Everts.

In general, the NCDR thinks it is good to be cautious with lists. Spokesperson Hagg: ,,We have seen what happened at the tax authorities. In its role as watchdog, the NCDR intends to look closely in the coming period in which places in the government even more use is made of comparable lists and to examine them to see whether there is exclusion and stigmatization on the basis of of grounds as referred to in Article 1 (of the Constitution: Equal treatment and non-discrimination-red).”