Memories of harm in institutions of care:The Dutch historiography of institutional child abuse from a comparative perspective

This chapter discusses the Dutch historiography of institutional child abuse from a comparative perspective. It does so by comparing the outcomes of three recent large-scale inquiries into child (sexual) abuse and neglect in state-sponsored out-of-home care, including foster care, and into child sexual abuse in Roman Catholic institutions with the findings of similar inquiries and truth commissions in other countries. While the first reports chose a quantitative approach, focusing primarily on survey and archival data, only the last report on child abuse in out-of-home care meets the requirements of the testimonial driven and victim-centered model of inquiry that was first developed in Australia and copied in English-speaking and northern-European countries. In this De Winter report victims' stories confirm data from archival sources. By using this approach, it has given care-leavers a voice and an opportunity to reconcile to their harmful memories and the wider public the knowledge a society needs to prevent abuse of children in the future.