In 2009, a warm summer, Marcel Jeninga's life changed forever.
Jenninga is a young father who had a lovely daughter with his wife three years ago.
In order to give their children a better living environment, they bought a townhouse in a quiet neighborhood in the Netherlands, where there is good security, friendly people, and on the swing in the backyard, they can often see their daughter playing.
(Jenninga and her grown-up daughter)
That afternoon, Jenninga got off work from the supermarket, locked up her bike, and returned home as usual.
Suddenly he heard a scream of pain coming from the bathroom, and it was his daughter shouting!
He rushed into the bathroom, unable to believe his eyes:
The 3-year-old daughter is wearing only her underwear, her body is full of scratch marks, and she is still bleeding.
Jenninga asked who did it, and she cried and said "Gilte."
(The community where the crime occurred)
Gilt. B (Geert.B) is a neighbor of the Jeninga family, a man in his 40s.
He seemed friendly, occasionally coming to their house for coffee and giving Jenninga's daughter plush toys and candy each time.
Jenninga didn't expect the neighbor to rape his daughter, but he recalled that 6 months ago, when Gilt came to the house for coffee, her daughter didn't say anything and just reached into his pocket and took the candy.
It was as if she had known there was sugar here.
The family called the police, who arrested Gilt and confiscated his computer and thousands of pornographic photos of the girl.
(Jenninga and his wife)
According to the police investigation, Geert began sexually assaulting the girl shortly after she was born.
Each time, he would come over to Jenninga and his wife when they were at work and give the little girl candy to eat after the incident, so that she would not say it.
Gilt took a lot of pornographic images of girls, many of which were posted online, and remained in some corners of the dark web until now.
After extracting Gilt's DNA, police found another horrific case.
In 1991, in the city of Deventer, an 8-year-old girl named Semiha Metin was raped and strangled to death.
(Semiha Metzing)
At the time, Gilt was a neighbor across the street from Metting and was investigated as a suspect after the crime. But because there was no evidence, he was quickly released, and the case became open.
Eighteen years later, through DNA comparison, the police found that Gilt's DNA was consistent with the DNA on Maiting's pajamas, that is, he had murdered the girl.
(Police carrying Metzing's body)
In addition, several other cases of child rape have surfaced, and by 2010, Geert was found to have sexually assaulted at least five girls and murdered one person.
The court convicted him that year and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
After 10 years in prison, Gilter was transferred to a mental hospital last year.
(Geert in court)
The punishment was not severe, and in contrast, Jenninga's family was destroyed.
After seeing the pornographic photos of his granddaughter being taken, Jenninga's father felt overwhelmed and committed suicide.
Jenninga's mother was accused of assisting Gil in assaulting her granddaughter and was once arrested.
That's because when Jenninga and his wife went out to work, their mothers helped with the children, and prosecutors thought it was impossible for her to be unaware of the evil things her neighbors had done.
(Jenninga and wife Priscia)
Because there was no evidence, the old woman was acquitted in 2009, but the family could not let go, did not believe that she did not notice anything unusual, and has never been with her since.
Under all kinds of pressure, Jenninga strives to make his wife and daughter live a normal life. He thought the case was closed and he could look forward, but it wasn't over yet...
The police told them that while Jill was assaulting his daughter, a Dutch group kept giving him advice on what to do.
in Jenninga
Founded in 1982, the group is called Vereniging Martijn, or Martijn for short, and is an organization that promotes the legalization of adult and child sexuality.
That said, it's a paedophile advocacy group.
"The Marijn Association was founded in 1982 as a platform for discussing paedophilia." The official website reads, "The Marijn Association is committed to promoting social acceptance of relationships between children and adults. When experiencing a pleasant relationship between a child and an adult, potential physical intimacy should not be a problem. ”
(Marijn Association website)
Regarding this physical intimacy, the Marijn Association proposes four guidelines:
1. Children and adults give their consent separately
2, the child's parents express an open attitude
3. Children have the freedom to withdraw from the relationship at any time
4. Maintain coordination with the child's personal development "
But the Marijn Society's actions are not as grandiose as the official website says, and they teach Gilt how to get away with it and how to escape.
Jenninga and his wife knew nothing, and they still attacked his daughter.
(Jenninga looks at the photo of her daughter)
As absurd as it may seem, the Marign Association is not an underground organization on the dark web, but a legitimate Dutch organization with public publications and membership.
Nor is it the only Dutch group supporting paedophilia.
In 2013, a website published a book supporting paedophilia, named after Edward Brongersma.
(Edward Blangesma)
Blougesma, a Dutch lawyer and politician, was arrested in the 1950s for having sex with a 17-year-old and has been advocating for the decriminalization of paedophilia ever since.
It was because of him that the age of sexual consent in the Netherlands was lowered to 16, and he also demanded a lower level.
From 1974 to 1987, the paedophile magazine Lolita was published in the Netherlands, full of child pornography images, and at one point reached 25,000 copies.
Lolita preaches that adult and child sexuality is beautiful, and its founder was sentenced to two years in prison for having sex with her 12-year-old daughter.
(Lolita Magazine)
Why can such organizations and magazines appear openly?
There are many historical reasons for this.
In the 1960s and 1980s, as sexual liberation movements were launched in European countries, paedophile groups approached radicals and proposed a new concept called "child sexual liberation".
These progressives believe that children also have desires, and if they are artificially suppressed, they will have psychological problems that will be difficult to solve for the rest of their lives.
As a result, adults begin to let children feel sex in advance, and many times this happens between children and adults.
Some German schools have introduced children's sexual exercises, that is, imitating sexual behavior in the classroom. There was even a year of discussion about whether to let the child have a relationship with the teacher (fortunately, in the end the opposition won).
The French Writers' Association preaches the "elimination of all sexual taboos" and does not recognize the physical boundaries between adults and children, leading to frequent cases of incest within the family.
"Child sexual liberation" became an extreme, but popular ideology. Germany's Greens and Liberal Democrats passed pro-paedophilia resolutions in the 1980s, and in Britain, a branch of the National Civil Liberties Commission appeared called the Pedophile Information Exchange Center.
In 1977, after three men were arrested for sexual intercourse with children aged 12 and 13, 69 senior intellectuals signed petitions demanding their release from prison. Among those who signed the signs were the famous Sartre, Beauvoir, Foucault and Roland Barthes.
Such a social atmosphere seems inconceivable now, but it was normal at the time.
It is also for this reason that the Marijn Association was born, its peak in the 80s, with more than 650 members, which makes the older generation of shameless pedophiles in the Netherlands very nostalgic.
Knowing the history, Jenninga was surprised, believing that these organizations, even if legal in the past, should not exist now.
Today's society is different from the past.
Since 2010, Jenninga has been fighting a lawsuit with the Marign Association, asking the Dutch court to shut down the organization.
The court originally ruled that he had won, but the Marign Association came up with words such as "sexual freedom", appealed, and rejected the verdict.
Jenninga approached lawyer Yme Drost, gathered a wealth of evidence of harm to children from the association, and filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court.
Finally, in 2014, they succeeded, with the court banning the Marijn Association from continuing to exist and all members dissolving on the spot.
(Jenninga in Foundation clothes)
But Jenninga's battle wasn't over, because he found that an e-book called the Pedophile Handbook was popular on the Internet, and the content was very similar to what the Marign Society had called Geert to do.
The book, which is nearly 1,000 pages long, details how to find children through their social circles, how to find children on the street or in sports clubs, and how to keep children silent.
(The Pedophile Handbook)
It lists the best times and places to seduce children, titled "Hunting Season," and even contains content on how to erase traces of DNA from their bodies.
Jenninga found that this e-book is not only popular on the dark web, but also easily found on the open internet, and the Netherlands does not prohibit it.
By this time he was already the president of the Anti-Abuse Fund, and when he saw it, he printed it out and handed it to government officials, lobbying them to ban the Pedophilia Handbook.
(Interviewed by Jenninga)
But Attorney General Ferd Grapperhaus said they couldn't do that because the book didn't contain criminal material.
"Yes, this book is disgusting and annoying." He said in a 2018 interview, "But we have no right to ban this book." ”
It is obviously all criminal guidance, because if you don't find the specific person to carry it out, is it not considered "criminal material"?
(Minister of Justice Feld Grabjos)
Jenninga later learned that the government had known about the book for a long time, but had not banned it.
He was furious and ridiculous, saying that it was unacceptable under any circumstances.
He made several trips to The Hague, placing the Pedophile Handbook directly on the desks of members of Congress and letting them see for themselves how terrible the contents were.
Because of the lack of political connections, no one took the book seriously at first, but because of the number of visits, a lawmaker named Jeroen Wijngaarden read the book carefully.
(Congressman Jerogan Wayne Harden)
This is completely beyond the scope of free speech, and it is obviously a crime guidebook!
Wayne Harden proposed a motion to ban the book, and after a closer look at the content, the proposal was supported by a majority of lawmakers.
(Dutch Parliament)
After banning the Marign Association, Jenninga succeeded in banning its poison as well.
Not only the Netherlands, but also Germany banned the book thanks to his efforts.
In 2019, he found the opportunity to meet with two German lawmakers to discuss banning the book, and the following year, he filed a complaint with the Frankfurt prosecutor's office and gave media interviews to pressure them.
He then appeared on camera with the German actor Carsten Stahl, telling his story about why the book had to be banned.
(Jenninga and actor Carsten Starr)
Finally, in June 2021, Germany approved a ban sentencing up to 3 years in prison for anyone who owns and disseminates a child sexual abuse guide book.
Two German lawmakers told the media that the bans in both countries would not have come out without Jenninga's efforts.
Jenninga didn't stop there, his battle continued.
(Pushing the law is already his job)
He wanted a ban across the EU to be pushed out, and that all those who held child sexual abuse guides would be considered criminal, not limited to the Pedophilia Handbook.
It's hard, and many EU countries are slow to respond to child protection, and even France didn't finalize the age of consent until last year at 15.
Jenninga continued to wrestle with the Marign Society as it resurged.
He and the foundation found out that the association had secretly contacted in the mail to discuss the formation of a second Marijn association.
Martijn Uittenbogaard, president of the Marijn Association, also promoted his email subscription service on his personal website, bluntly saying the subscription was designed for "boys and girls enthusiasts."
(Markin Usberger)
Jenninga handed the evidence over to the police, who arrested three of them. But Makin was fine, as he denied the existence of a second association.
In fact, his goal was no longer to form small associations.
In 2020, Makin and two other former association members announced the reopening of the Neighbourhood Love, Freedom and Diversity Party, or PNVD Party for short.
(Party of only 3 people for the time being)
The party was founded in 2006 and briefly disbanded in 2010. Nicknamed the "Paedophile Party," its main platform is to promote the legalization of child pornography and to lower the age of sexual consent to 12.
Makin said that the Netherlands now has no free spirit, and in order to "create a better environment for pedophiles in the country, he decided to take the lead and reinvigorate his glory."
On television, he said that children of two or three years old are fully capable of deciding whether they want sex or not, just like eating ice cream.
"If children of this age can decide whether to want ice cream or go to an amusement park, why can't they decide whether to have sex or not?"
(Makin said in a television interview)
Seeing him emerge, Jenninga mobilized Dutch lawmakers to sign a petition to prevent the PNVD party from gaining a foothold.
He also decided to confront them head-on, forming a party for the parents of the child victims and starting his own campaign.
"Seeing that politicians and governments have reacted so slowly, my trust in people has been shattered." Jenninga said, "What happened in the past has been devouring me. Running for office can find a sense of purpose and give these terrible things an idea. ”
(Jenninga and daughter)
No father wanted to experience what happened to Jenninga, but the love for his child made him grit his teeth step by step and fight.
Hopefully, he'll bring more and bigger changes.
Let those things that are superficially grand, but in fact despicable, disappear in the wind...