AMSTERDAM--“Did you hug your child today?” It was this question of Curaçao writer Jopi Hart that caught the immediate attention of those present at a lecture last Thursday evening in Amsterdam on the increasing aggression and criminal behaviour of the Dutch Caribbean youth.
The examples that followed were characteristic of the Dutch Caribbean society marked by criminal and aggressive behaviour of the youth in light of the many one-parent families, poverty and impoverished districts.
A three-year old child is severely admonished by his mother in public who shouts that if the child doesn’t sit she will break his mouth, a child with a low IQ whose mother tells the teacher to give him a “good spanking” so that he will do better at school, a teenage girl who says that the baby she had with her loverboy will compensate for the love that she never received at home, a mother whose six sons are all in prison.
“I have seen a lot of misery. I have seen the heart wrenching situations when taking a sick child home from school,” said Hart, a retired English teacher and member of the Otrobanda Platform. He said it was incomprehensible that in a relatively rich country like Curaçao, there was so much poverty.
“A baby is not born a criminal so along the way something has to go wrong between the age of zero and twelve,” said Hart, who mentioned that Curaçao had a very high rate of armed robberies among minors. The absent father is a huge problem. Mothers choose to raise their children without a father because often having a man in the house leads to violence.
The single mothers mostly focus on their daughters in the scarce free time that they have. As a result the sons end up in the streets where the gangs are active and become a role model for these young males. The neglect, feelings of shame and being misunderstood makes harsh criminals of these youngsters whose criminal behaviour only becomes worse when they end up in prison.
“It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve. It is a nightmare to which many in our community have turned a blind eye,” said Hart, who called on the entire civic society to tackle this issue which he referred to as the “most urgent problem that we have ever known in our democratic state of law.”
Hart, an English teacher by profession who taught for many years at Radulphus College and who also worked at the Roman Catholic School Board in Curaçao, did a lot of research on youngsters, their behaviour and the increasing aggression and crime of this group. He has written a book called “Crossroads” (Kruispunt) which was recently published.
Over the years, Hart’s concern about the ever increasing aggression and criminal behaviour of the youth has grown to the point where he is calling for collective action. In his opinion, the situation has become explosive and will definitely leave its marks on the Dutch Caribbean culture and society.
An all-round approach is needed with a leading role for the political establishment and by extension social workers, teachers and non-governmental organisations. Government should work on this issue on an intra-ministerial level with the involvement of the different departments such as health, education and social affairs. Hart lauded Curaçao Justice Minister Nelson Navarro for having started such an initiative. A social network must be created to assist families and youngsters that are in trouble.
Schools should offer full-time education with prolonged school hours and more attention for the developing of the social skills and talents of students. Hart called for a more holistic approach in education where the entire human being plays a big role. English should become the language of instruction at schools because the Dutch language is a “mental block” for many students.
The large audience, which included authorities, organisations, social workers and other professionals of Amsterdam and other municipalities affiliated to the Dutch Caribbean, brainstormed on possible solutions while information was shared on initiatives that were already in place.
It was the 333rd event of the Netherlands Antilles Association Network (Vereniging Antilliaans Netwerk VAN) and the organisation strives to keep being a platform for Dutch Caribbean citizens in the Netherlands for the years to come, VAN President Roos Leerdam-Bulo proudly stated.
