The Dutch Foreign Ministry issued an apology on Monday following a report that blamed its administration for institutional racism, calling staff “monkeys” or firing them because of their skin colour.
The independent report commissioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement found that department employees of color often felt left out and ignored by their white colleagues.
The publication noted that while the employees were “generally not abused in person,” they often experienced “verbal abuse” from hearing others speak ill of people because of their skin color, religion, or background.
“monkey” insults
Several staff members, according to the report, claimed that he has referred to people “repeatedly as ‘monkeys,’ ‘bokitos,'” the name of a gorilla that escaped from a Dutch zoo in 2007, and was injured.
Others have been called “niggers” or “Zwarte Piet”, a controversial popular “blackface” figure, the report added.
“African countries were described by one employee as ‘monkey countries,'” the document continues, based on interviews with 33 people and focus groups comprising a total of 47 people.
Among these were “bicultural” ministry employees working in the Netherlands and abroad, embassy staff and some white employees, he said.
“Painful and Shocking”
Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra called the report “painful and shocking”.
“What various colleagues in the department and missions around the world have experienced is unacceptable and deeply touches me,” he tweeted.
She found that several interviewees felt “ignored,” with locally recruited embassy staff feeling particularly left out.
The report said the findings “raised the question of whether institutional racism exists. We conclude that it does.”
The Netherlands has long promoted its image as a liberal and multicultural society, but the country has come to terms with its history of colonial power and slavery in recent years.
Media reported that the government planned to issue a formal apology for slavery later this month, a potential act of repentance that has been heavily criticized, with groups representing the former colonies saying they were not consulted.
Source: BFM TV
