Allowances affair seems like a horror movie without end

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<img src="https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/SVv3NK_Mfy89cXY2CnBF_6xXsyE/diocontent/238218247/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.8" alt="Sayenne Tolud uit Rotterdam probeert ondanks de toeslagenaffaire de draad van het leven op te pakken, maar ze krijgt er amper de kans voor. ‘Te absurd voor woorden, ja.’" />
Despite the benefits affair, Sayenne Tolud from Rotterdam tries to get back to business, but she barely gets the chance to do it. “Too absurd for words, yes.” © Frank de Roo

The benefits affair still defines Sayenne's life: 'I don't believe the end is in sight'
Suddenly, two officers arrive at Sayenne's door, due to a fine of only 78 euros in 2016. She is put in a van and driven to an ATM. It was that or two days of sitting. For the mother, who was a victim of the benefits affair, the visit brings out unprocessed trauma. But it also becomes the reason for her to finally talk about her experience: 'I am surviving'.

Cock Rijneveen 09-12-23, 16:00 Last updated: 09-12-23, 17:06
It quickly dazzles when she starts talking. A stream of words, sometimes interrupted when tears welling up and need to be wiped away, paint a picture of her adult life. Ten years of wrongly pinned down by authorities, the tax authorities at the forefront, who unceremoniously and uncompassionately stalked Sayenne Tolud and her family.

It sounds surreal. And when it becomes almost too unlikely to fully comprehend how she lived in the grip of the government, her lawyer Milan Jans nods affirmatively that it is true and not otherwise: “Too absurd for words, yes.”

Free childcare
“I lived with a sense of shame for years”, confesses Sayenne (33) at one point. “For a long time, I thought I had done something stupid. That it was my fault. And in my environment, they also blamed me at the time. How can you send your son to free childcare now, they said. That doesn't exist anyway.”

More about all the misery that the benefits affair caused in a moment. The reason for coming out with her story is recent, when two officers cruelly ate open barely processed traumas from her past one afternoon.

At the time, due to all the debts, I really did not have the money to pay for the tram.

Sayenne, Victim of the Benefits Affair
They stood in front of her apartment in Rotterdam East. “There was a knock on the door, I didn't hear the bell. According to them, there was still an outstanding fine of 78 euros. I had to pay it immediately or sit for two days.” It appears to be a ticket from 2016, the darkest period of her life due to black driving with her son. “Because of all the debts, I really didn't have the money to pay for the tram at the time.”

Completely off the map

Those two agents were just doing their job, but Sayenne is in her right here.

Milan Jans, Her advisor to Spiertz Advocaten
Because she is a recognized victim of the benefits affair, that penalty should have been waived a long time ago. ,, So that's what I said too, but those agents had nothing to do with that. Eventually, they took me in a van to an ATM nearby. My son would be home from school in a moment. That's when I pinned the money.”

Completely off the map, she is left behind. To regain her willpower and perseverance in the weeks that followed to address this bizarre state of affairs. And she still has moments of doubt whether she would do the right thing to tell her story, which is also very private. The two agents don't blame Sayenne. “They're just doing their job.”

That's it, says her counselor Jans. “For the victims of the benefits affair”, he explains,,, the SBN, the Social Bank Netherlands, was created to settle their debt problems. All debts to government agencies - including the CJIB - have been forgiven to them.” He calls it “Kafkaesque”, a word that stands for how ordinary citizens end up in nightmarish situations due to government actions that are as incomprehensible as they are absurd.

“What the government, in this case the municipality of Rotterdam, gives with one hand, it takes with the other. Those agents thought: someone like that can say anything, they hear it all day long, and they just do what they're told. But Sayenne is in her right here. That just needs to be acknowledged.”

Successful lawsuits
Jans and his colleagues have several successful benefits affair cases to their name. Together with Sayenne, they decided to show the municipality of Rotterdam that the redress system is still not working. And that the municipality really needs to organize its affairs better.

She knows: she is not alone. In Rotterdam alone, there are already two hundred mothers who have exactly the same thing happened and were victims of Sarafina childcare practices. Together with the municipality of Rotterdam, he offered an arrangement for free childcare in 2013, especially for studying mothers such as Sayenne, who was at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences at the time. Due to wrongdoing, the same Sarafina was declared bankrupt two years later. In 2021, the SP asked written questions in the city council about the consequences for parents.

Afterwards, the daycare center appeared to have pocketed the parental contribution

Sayenne
“We had”, Sayenne explains again,,, exemption from the parental contribution. Afterwards, it turned out that the nursery had pocketed that money. That is why I received reminders from the tax authorities to repay the fees and my allowance was put on hold. That's how I got into debt.” She was also in danger of being expelled from school and evicted from her home, which resulted in a burnout.

A lonely battle
It's the short version of a long story. Thousands more have experienced something similar. Sayenne talks emotionally but enthusiastically about the attitude of a range of government institutions, from the tax authorities to debt restructuring. Many regulations are reviewed that one authority has come up with but that the other is not aware of.

Parents affected by the benefits affair previously participated in the March With The Mothers in Rotterdam.
Parents affected by the benefits affair previously participated in the March With The Mothers in Rotterdam. © ANP
She talks about counters that only refer. There are letters and reminders that are at odds with each other. And finally, there are audio recordings that prove how painful it all is. It sounds like a hopeless struggle as it is lonely, although no one at all could have missed it.

Indeed, the benefits affair is one of the biggest scandals in the Netherlands, with tens of thousands of families as victims. Like Sayenne, mother of a 12-year-old son who knows no better than that his parents have been haunted all his life by authorities that had become ruthless bloodhounds in their family.

Very bad B-movie
She says she feels like the protagonist of a really bad B-movie. With one difference: normally you're outside after an hour or two; a horror scenario unfolds around her that she just can't escape. Because the chaos and misery of the benefits affair still seems to determine her life in 2023.

Sayenne is being protected, but at the same time being tackled again by the same municipality.

Milan Jans, Attorney
It seemed like a 'stroke of luck' to her that she lives in Rotterdam. In 2021, in anticipation of national measures, the municipality decided to pay off the debts of victims of the benefits affair on its own. Jans:,, Sayenne and others received money to fight against all fraud allegations. So she is being protected. But at the same time, the same municipality is also tackling her again.”

Because financial satisfaction to get their lives on track appears to be more unruly in practice. De Rotterdamse: “Then, for example, I get a letter about the cancellation of municipal taxes and then an assessment from the water board.”

In Survival Mode
Once again, she says, she is certainly not alone. But she is someone who is combative enough to continue to oppose 'the system'. How many letters she hasn't written (one time to the Fiod, the other time to the College of Human Rights), how many law firms she hasn't visited. The district coach helps her where possible; the Ombudsman Rotterdam-Rijnmond thinks along with her.

I don't feel like the end is in sight. Still, I'm going to keep going until everything is back.

Sayenne, Victim of the Benefits Affair
New tears fill her eyes. “I'm in survival mode. I can't get rid of that to this day. I don't know when I can start my recovery.” Jans, her counselor: “We want the municipality to acknowledge that mistakes have been made with Sarafina childcare. We support Sayenne to recover the damage from all authorities involved.”

She thinks she has the right people around her now. But she's skeptical when it comes to whether things will get better soon. “I don't feel like the end is in sight. Still, I'm going to keep going. Until everything I'm entitled to is back. But the lost years... I won't get them back. I was 23 when this started, now I'm 33. My son has experienced it up close. He has lost his faith in honest government forever.”

Ombudsman: 'It's a scandal'
“It's not an affair but a scandal.” It's one of the first things Marianne van den Anker, the Rotterdam Ombudsman, says in a response. It immediately shows how she is doing. The municipality of Rotterdam is also not failing to express its support for “her enormous courage and strength to tell her story.”

Van den Anker believes that there are many more victims of the benefits affair in Rotterdam than has been assumed so far. Not more than five thousand, “but the last count could just amount to eight to nine thousand people”. “And that times three or four, if you include partners and children.”

From all the conversations she had with Sayenne and other victims, she knows: “Compensation for the suffering caused to a family is very important. But in addition to the money, it is certainly also about recognition and being seen. The municipality must apologize.”

Other young mothers
In Sayenne's story, she recognizes that of other young mothers in Rotterdam. “Although her situation is complex.” At the same time, she believes that the municipality of Rotterdam and, in particular, the coaches who have been appointed, are doing their best and have already helped many others. There is room for improvement, she calls 'the counter jungle', where victims sometimes end up.

Think alderman Natasha Mohamed-Hoesein (poverty alleviation and debt counseling) says through her spokesperson that the municipality acknowledges the “injustice done to victims”. But he also says she “had no role in recovering benefits or classifying parents as fraudsters”. For privacy reasons, the alderman cannot elaborate on Sayenne's situation.

Ombudsman Van den Anker knows: “Individual officials are now working for these people at the municipality. That makes it inefficient. Make collective agreements. They deserve a priority lane so that their problems are solved more quickly and with priority.”