Juvenile court judges are all too familiar with the search for emergency shelter for children and young people. In Brussels, this situation resulted in an 11-year-old girl, for whom there was no place in youth care, being taken into hospital and ultimately becoming the victim of rape.
The attack on the young girl did not take place in the hospital itself, but the public prosecutor’s office links the attack to the situation in which she had to stay, calling it “institutional abuse”.
Michiel Steel, a juvenile court judge in Antwerp, interprets this choice of words as a “cry for help” from the public prosecutor’s office.
“They are openly asking themselves: is this getting out of hand? How are we actually helping that girl?” The lack of shelters for children and young people in crisis situations is something that Steel says he deals with “almost every week”. The problem was highlighted a year and a half ago in a report by VRT’s Pano, but little appears to have changed.
In a crisis situation, the first thing you look for is bed, bath and bread. A place that says: you are safe here
“There can be no care without safety,” Steel says. “That safety is the first requirement. And we don’t always succeed in providing it.”
Brussels juvenile court judge Tine Suykerbuyk agrees. “We always have to fish in the same pond: special youth care facilities, VAPH facilities [institutions for people with disabilities], etc. But there have to be beds, there have to be educators, there has to be guidance and support. If all that is not available, we cannot send them there.”
Placing a child or young person in a hospital is one of the very last resorts, say Suykerbuyk and Steel. “Fortunately, hospitals are very willing to go to great lengths,” Steel says. “At least those children have food and a bed. But what kind of message are you sending to a 15-year-old boy with problems? In terms of care and support, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Solutions have been sought over the years, he says. There are now several places available in youth care, especially for juvenile delinquents. But many such cases involve dangerous parenting situations, and these children risk slipping through the net.
Let’s just say that young people today have a very different childhood than I did
“In a crisis situation, the first thing you look for is bed, bath and bread. A place that says: you are safe here,” Steel says. “In the week that follows, we work hard to find a better solution. But a week passes quickly.”
There are some institutions that shy away from providing crisis care, he says, sometimes because they already have a very complex group of residents and want to be cautious. “They have to weigh up each case: can we handle this?”
The problems faced by children, young people and families appear to be getting increasingly serious. How can this be explained? Steel: “Of course, you can’t blame it all on the internet. Let’s just say that young people today have a very different childhood than I did. And that was barely 40 years ago.
“Expectations for children and young people are extremely high, many parents have less time for their children, there’s a lot of peer pressure at school and on social media, these are uncertain times, there are reports of war, young people have a lot of questions about this and are struggling with themselves.” On the other hand, the shortcomings in youth care are not new, says Suykerbuyk. “The problem has existed for as long as I’ve been working as a youth court judge, and probably long before that.”
Steel nevertheless finds it “appalling” that the problem is resurfacing, especially in the context of such distressing events as the attack on the 11-year-old girl in Brussels. “Ultimately, everyone is trying to help that girl. And then this happens...”
Do you need someone to talk to? Contact Tele-Onthaal on 106 or www.tele-onthaal.be. Young people can also contact Awel on 102 or via chat at awel.be.