Why it’s our shared responsibility to protect kids | Madeleine van der Bruggen |

0.5 up to 3% of our male population has some pedophilic interest. That means that everybody probably knows a person with pedophilic interests.

According to Madeleine van der Bruggen, most people don’t act out on it, because they know that it’s illegal. And although they never act out on it, they will also never ever be able to talk about it to anyone. But sometimes they do. Without justifying this, it seems a logical thing to happen. Madeleine argues that this is a public and mental health issue.

A shared responsibility for all of us. Let’s acknowledge this problem exists and stop with hate and throwing rocks at offenders’ houses. That is not going to solve this problem! Let’s be a mature society and agree that only when we are open about this topic, people will find the strength to come forward, so we as a society can help. Madeleine van der Bruggen is a psychologist and criminologist and combines both in her work for the Dutch National Police. Working as an expert on sex crimes, she advises in local, federal as well as in international child pornography and child abuse investigations.

She wants to fight one of the most serious crimes: one that concerns the dignity and safety of our children. Madeleine is also working on a PhD exploring child exploitation networks on the Darkweb, not only to connect the world of policing with the scientific world, but more importantly to gather more knowledge about this horrible type of crime, and to hopefully being part of making the world a safer place.