A senior official with the Dutch Olympic committee has insisted that a convicted child rapist in its beach volleyball team is not a paedophile, in an email seen by the Guardian.
A concerned British man who has lived in the Netherlands for more than a decade, wrote to the Dutch Olympic committee and called the inclusion of Steven van de Velde in the team “a stain on the Dutch national side”. In a reply the Dutch Olympic committee spokesperson wrote: “Steven is NOT a peadophile [sic]; you really don’t think that de Dutch NOC would send someone to Paris who IS a real risk? No, he isn’t a risk.”
There has been mounting public anger at the presence of the beach volleyball player Van de Velde, who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old British girl in 2016. Earlier this week the International Olympic Committee faced calls for an investigation into how a convicted child rapist has been allowed to compete at Paris 2024. The IOC has said the selection of athletes for the Games was the responsibility of individual committees.
There has been mounting public anger at the presence of the beach volleyball player Van de Velde, who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old British girl in 2016. Earlier this week the International Olympic Committee faced calls for an investigation into how a convicted child rapist has been allowed to compete at Paris 2024. The IOC has said the selection of athletes for the Games was the responsibility of individual committees.
The world has going immensely nuts;
- Genocide seems okay by most of the presidents.
- Calling for justice is a hate crime and gets you arrested.
- Racism and Fascism on the rise.
- Raping a 12 year old person seems to be okay, doesn’t get you labeled as a pedophile.
- Calling out that Zionism is in fact bad gets you the “antisemitic” name.
- Quoting Hitler seems to be okay
- Saying that you want to erase and nuke a whole group/race seems to be okay.
I’m seriously worried for the future.
All of those things happened in the past, too. Probably even more than now.
I think the difference, now, is that it gets called out a lot more. In the past, it happened quietly and people went along or pretended to not notice. Now, people are calling it out and the shitty people have to openly defend it.
With regard to this specific issue, you don’t even have to go looking for cases of young women being discouraged from reporting rape and sexual assault allegations against promising young athletes, because “think how you could hurt his future prospects” – examples are so plentiful that you can’t help but find them if you spend any time reviewing sports news. It’s really only been in the last decade or so that anybody has seriously pushed back against the idea that Johnny Sportsball’s ability to score points for the local team is more important than the safety and bodily autonomy of women.
This is getting an unnecessary amount of attention. I won’t defend his actions, but he was punished for it. You know how many ex-convicts participate in society every day? Heaps of them.
Yeah. It totally depends on their behaviour after their sentence, and their attitude towards their crime. Since this person did not reoffend for about nine years, I would think he has improved. And he apparently was deemed safe for society upon release, otherwise he would not have been released early, and possibly not been released at all.
- She was 12
- He flew from his home in the Netherlands to England (~209miles) to meet this girl
- She was 12, he was 19
- He raped her
- He plead guilty (not found guilty)
- She was 12
- Sentenced to four years in prison
- Only served 1 year, 1 month
No, he in fact was not punished for it. He still owes society 2 years, 11 months.
Conflating the raping of a 12-year-old girl that he admitted to raping with other felons is insulting to the other felons.
No, he in fact was not punished for it. He still owes society 2 years, 11 months.
This is not how the justice system works in progressive countries. It’s not the goal to lock people up. One of the main goals is to avoid reoffending behaviour. And this is not avoided by locking people up as long as possible.
What also likely played a role in his shortened sentence is the fact that he was so young. At 19, people change really fast. So the judge and the psychiatrist may have believed him that he understood his lesson after 1 year and 1 month.
I’m sure the now 22-year-old that he admitted to raping 10 years ago feels relief knowing he’s learned his lesson and gets to back to being a superstar because he was just a kid who grew out of his phase of raping 12-year-olds.
I do agree with you that most people can learn from their mistakes, and should be given multiple chances for redemption. But I draw the line at rape, especially of children; it’s personal. I will respect your opinion, despite not agreeing with it, if you will respect mine, while not agreeing with it. 😊
But when you give fame and wealth to known child rapists like van de Velde, trump, or others who regularly appears in epstein’s flight logs, they can use that fame and wealth to attract more victims and cover up their actions.
There’s a difference between having a livelihood and being granted access to the power that nationwide recognition gives you.
13 months in jail for getting a 12 year old drunk and raping her repeatedly doesn’t sound like proper punishment… Specially not when he has shown no remorse for his actions
After his release in 2017, van de Velde complained about “all the nonsense” reporting on his crime in the media, claiming that the term pedophile did not apply to him, without expanding further. At the same time he stated not yet having read any of the reporting he was criticizing. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) condemned his comments at the time, stating that his “lack of remorse and self-pity is breathtaking”.
Well, now I know why people hate the Dutch.
Okay Mr. Official, if he is not a paedophile then what is he?
Probably one of those weirdos who knows the specific term for paedophiles who are into teens rather than younger children and tries to use it as if it’s a meaningful distinction.
Okay, I’ll bite. How is that not a meaningful distinction? Do you really think attraction to a 15 year old and attraction to a 5 year old is the exact same thing? It’s just like the distinction between murder and manslaughter. They’re both bad but they are not the same.
I didn’t say it was the exact same, but to the victims the difference isn’t very meaningful, much like victims of murder and manslaughter are still dead whether we make a distinction or not. It’s meaningful for prosecution purposes - at least in the case if manslaughter and murder because it’s taking intent into account. It’s also a bit easier to accidentally kill someone than it is to accidentally have sex with a minor.
A reformed person. He served his time and was released because he proved he changed. The corrections system in many countries is ment to “correct” bad behavior not simply punish it.
This is a fair point I am willing to entertain. But does he need to be on the olympic team? he can go on with his life and practice his beloved sport, but representing his country is a privilege he probably should have lost.
A reformed person. He served his time and was released because he proved he changed.
The fuck are you talking about? He served a year in the UK for raping a 12-year-old multiple times, then got sent back the the Netherlands via a treaty, they didn’t imprison him, and he called it a lot of nonsense.
They can not be called a pedophile unless made in the made in the region of Champagne, France Pedoland, Country of bullshit. He is just a sparkling child rapist.
There is no excuse or explanation that makes rape and sexual abuse to anyone, particularly children in any way OK.
The point of this is understanding the abuser, how they think and operate to the end that knowing can combat their abuse of others.
To that end, the nuance they are trying to point out is that rapists, while also 90% of the time picking victims they know, aren’t sexualizing children, they are raping, the harm and truama is the point, they are sadistically attacking, they aren’t sexualizing.
A pedophile is sexualizing children, it’s a paraphillia outside of human sexuality. There are people who sexualize objects, actions, things that aren’t a part of inborn human sexuality, that’s what this is except rather than harmless it’s incredible, inhuman harm.
Rapists can wait a long time to find an opportunity to rape their victim, or have detailed plans with lots of preparation, but the underlying motivation of the abuse is rape, attack, harm, not sex or sexuality.
A pedophile will also often have very longterm prep to gain the opportunity to sexually abuse, job choices, religious choices, seeking community positions, and may spend a lot of time grooming their victim for abuse, for them the motivation is sexual. They sexualize children and that’s the motivation of the abuse
It’s all rape, it’s all child abuse, it’s all traumatic and life damaging, and should carry MUCH harsher sentencing, it should be up there with murdered 1. But in an effort to understand what is happening and how to detect it, prevent it, or expose it, the researched data is important. There are a lot of adults who were themselves victims of abuse whom spend a lot of time researching these topics to combat them. It’s worthwhile.
A lot of child molesters actually aren’t pedophiles (a minority, even, in some studies). Children are just generally easy targets for abuse
I’ve had to explain this so many times. The majority of molesters are not pedophiles and the majority of pedophiles are not molesters. Pedophilia is a disorder, one that people suffer from at that. There is a (almost certainly) sizable group of pedophiles who have never actually done anything wrong but are caught in the crossfire of anger and therefore can’t seek help/treatment.
Very important.
For Germans there is
https://kein-taeter-werden.de/
I’m sure there are other similar services in other countries.
A rapist.
If I’m not completely mistaken, they do psychological assessment on inmates here in Europe. Since they insist he’s not a pedophile then the assessment probably came to that conclusion. No underlying attraction to children, “just” a rapist who chose a child as his victim.
Trump is already considering him for a position on his cabinet.
