The situation is still unclear. Gendarmes, child welfare and the labor inspectorate carried out searches on Tuesday in the small village of Cussy-en-Morvan (Saône-et-Loire) with the aim of dismantling a possible clandestine network of fostering Dutch children, according to information from the Parisian and France 3 Bourgogne Franche-Comté. According to local television, 13 teenagers were taken from their foster families and placed in a home in Nevers.
These adolescents, faced with social or legal difficulties in the Netherlands, are hosted by families in the sector for “break-up stays” overseen by the Force en soi association. If the process is common, neither child protection nor elected officials were aware of the association’s activities in their municipalities, according to The Parisian.
A potentially abused foster child
Another problem: in March, a boy hosted as part of these “break-up stays” was found by the gendarmes barefoot in a stolen car. He said he had run away and been mistreated and forced to work for one of the association’s “godfathers”. According to the Ile-de-France newspaper, the teenager was in a state “which has every cause for concern” and complained of forced labor, of being poorly fed and “of staying in the car with the dog while the landlord went to the restaurant”.
Facts which led to the opening of an investigation by the Nevers public prosecutor’s office, then entrusted to the Chalon-sur-Saône prosecutor for broader investigations concerning Force itself. The association, for its part, claims to have always “complied with all the rules which govern its activity”. In a letter addressed to Parisian on November 27 through her lawyer, she denied any ill-treatment. While waiting to learn more, the 13 young people removed from their host family should return to the Netherlands very soon.
