An Antwerp woman who was convicted last year of abusing small children was allowed to continue running her crèche, and parents didn’t know anything of the matter until recently.
Parents received a letter from the department of Children and Families (Kind en Gezin) on Monday, HLN reports, letting them know that the daycare would be closed for two months “to prevent the safety and health of the children from being compromised.”
Multiple concerns were cited, but the fact that the daycare’s manager was convicted for child abuse and neglect in January 2021 was especially upsetting for parents to learn.
“When I read that, I got nauseous,” one parent told HLN. “So my baby has been in the nursery of someone who has been abusing children for months?”
The sectors for monitoring daycare centres have come under heavy criticism in recent weeks following the death of an infant in another crèche that had a similarly long history of complaints of abuse.
Abuse dates back to 2017
The facts related to the conviction date back to 2017 and 2018, with reports that the woman fed a baby so aggressively that the child’s lip bled. When the child threw up, the woman allegedly forced the vomit back into her mouth.
In another incident, a 10-month-old baby fell from a bed and lay crying on the floor for half an hour before being tended to.
Both parents and another employee of the daycare filed formal complaints, and two and a half years later, the owner was convicted by an Antwerp Court for unintentional beating or injury to children and for the “degrading treatment” of a baby, or in other words, neglect and abuse.
But news about the conviction took over a year to surface and reach parents, and that conviction did not lead to a withdrawal of the crèche's licence.
Repeated poor marks in inspections
An inspection of the daycare in 2018 led to a temporary three-week suspension, but the manager was allowed to reopen the daycare following a discussion. Repeated visits in the years that followed left authorities doubtful of her capabilities when it came to the running of the centre, even in a position where she was not directly dealing with children but rather tending to administrative and supervisory responsibilities.
Despite the repeated negative inspection reports, the worrying complaints and the criminal conviction, it was apparently legally impossible for Kind en Gezin to close the daycare centre until this week, due to a new complaint received on February 20th.
A crèche in Flanders for illustrative purposes. Photo by Helen Lyons/The Brussels Times.
Among other things, that complaint reported that children who were crying were taken to a separate room where they were then left alone. There was also talk of an unsafe bed, unhygienic conditions and concealing incidents from parents.
“We immediately took this complaint seriously,” said Kind en Gezin. “As a precaution, we decided on 28 February to close the crèche for two months.”
Parents only received the explanation on Monday evening.
“It's unimaginable that no one intervened sooner,” one told HLN. “And it's inexplicable that only this week we learn that the daycare centre is run by someone who has been convicted of child abuse.”
