What the Dutch benefits scandal and policy's focus on ‘fraud’ can teach US about the endurance of empire

Abstract

In the benefits scandal, the Dutch state wrongfully accused at least 35,000 Dutch parents of young children of committing fraud with subsidies for childcare, based on ethnic profiling. Especially families with heritage in the former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and Suriname were hit. Because they had to compensate for this supposed ‘fraud’, families were often thrown into severe debt and years of financial and legal struggle, a struggle that is ongoing for many. For the parents of more than 2,000 children, this even led to the loss of custody of their children. The Dutch state has formally acknowledged that ‘institutional racism’ was part of the problem, yet the scandal remains analysed by many, especially white scholars and journalists, as unintended, incidental and unrelated to Dutch colonial history. This commentary addresses the scandal as a case of an enduring colonial legacy of targeting racialised and gendered citizens in social policy. ‘Fraud’ is a social policy category through which this is made possible and violence continues to be inflicted upon racialised and gendered members of the Dutch population.