The Dehumanization of Care
In these institutions, emotional bonding with adults is effectively prohibited. Caregivers are reduced to procedural functionaries—robotic entities facilitating biological routines. For a child aged two to four, the conclusion is inevitable: adults are emotionally insignificant byproducts. Safety and intimacy shift from the vertical axis (parent-child) to the horizontal: the peer group. This 'peer-only attachment' is a survival strategy born of an emotional vacuum, creating a frozen blueprint that persists for a lifetime.

 

The State as Aggressor and Executioner
The ultimate tragedy is not just the initial rupture, but the extreme, fascist-like repression that follows in adulthood. The grown-up child carries a worldview forged in a state of emergency—a profound attachment to the group that a hypocritical society refuses to comprehend. Instead of offering sanctuary, the government and its executive arms—the police and Mental Health Services (GGZ)—launch a campaign of institutional warfare.

Rather than shielding the victim from the hatred and death threats of the masses, these institutions lead the charge. The GGZ pathologizes the scars of state-inflicted trauma with dehumanizing labels, while the police provide the muscle for repression. Even communities that claim to champion inclusivity, such as the LGBTQ+ movement, often mirror this hatred, casting out these survivors with visceral disdain.

 

The Cycle of Social Extermination and the Failure of the State
This is the most cowardly and criminal form of governance imaginable: to inflict a lifelong psychological disability upon young children and then persecute the adult for the weight of that very burden. Society, fueled by institutional silence, views these survivors as a 'lower species' against whom unlimited violence is permitted.

 

However, a truly just and healthy state does not merely manage the fallout of its own failures; it has a fundamental moral obligation to actively dismantle the hatred it has fostered. By treating victims as 'disturbed scum' to be eradicated through police repression and clinical labeling, the state and society prove the child’s original trauma right: the world of adults is inherently dangerous and structurally cruel. Justice will only begin when the state stops acting as the executioner and starts fulfilling its duty to de-escalate social hatred, replacing fascist exclusion with the recognition of its own culpability. Until the state actively uproots the dehumanization it planted, it remains not a protector of rights, but a perpetrator of ongoing war against the vulnerable.

 

Cultural and Scientific Context

 

Recommended Reading
The mechanisms of this institutional abuse and the lifelong struggle for justice are explored in depth in:

• Heijting, J., Gepleegd: Haat en geweld in een pleeggezin onder jeugdzorg. A powerful account of state-facilitated neglect and the subsequent failure of the system to provide safety or perspective.

• Scientific Foundations of Institutional Trauma
  Research supports the assertion that institutional environments fundamentally alter developmental trajectories:

  • The Inversion of Attachment: Children in residential care often fail to develop differentiated attachments to adults, leading to "indiscriminately social" behaviors or profound withdrawal (Zeanah et al., 2005).
  • Peer Dependency: When adult caregivers are inconsistent or "robotic," the peer group becomes the primary source of regulation, yet this horizontal attachment cannot replace the vertical safety needed for healthy social integration (Sonderman, 2020).
  • Lifelong Pathologization: Survivors of early institutional rearing are at significantly higher risk for social exclusion and "secondary victimization" when their survival mechanisms are misread as personality disorders by the state (Stahili Foundation).