Belgium relives Dutroux horror but much has changed

BRUSSELS, July 28: When the bodies of two Belgian schoolgirls were found dumped by a railway line in June, the country, which has lived under the shadow of paedophile killer Marc Dutroux for a decade, cried out: ''Not again''.

Stacy Lemmens, aged 7, and Nathalie Mahy, 10, went missing during a street festival on a sunny Saturday evening in early June in the eastern city of Liege. Their bodies were found on June 28. They had been strangled and Nathalie had been raped.

''Belgium plunged back into horror'' declared the front-page of the national daily La Libre Belgique.

The murders harked back to the horrific crimes of Dutroux, who was arrested in 1996 and later found guilty of kidnapping and raping six girls. He killed two of them and left two others to starve to death in a makeshift dungeon.

But some observers say the murders of Stacy and Nathalie show that Belgium has learned a lesson from Dutroux and has changed the way it deals with crimes against children.

''We have a problem with our past, for sure. What you feel in Liege is that there is a Dutroux trauma,'' said Marjan Justaert, a reporter for national daily De Morgen. Two of Dutroux's victims came from the eastern city.

This ''Dutroux trauma'' has made the overwhelmingly Catholic and socially conservative nation more alert to child abuse, and authorities have taken several measures to improve the safety of children.

''We have made an improvement in getting rid of the taboo of talking about violence against children,'' said Children Rights' Commissioner Ankie Vanderkerckhove.

PRAGMATISM

Dutroux's crimes sent shockwaves through Belgium in 1996.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest at what they viewed as police bungling of the investigation. Dutroux and his former wife were only convicted in June 2004.

Afterwards, shock gave way to pragmatism, and some observers say Dutroux may have encouraged more victims of child abuse to come forward.

''Since Dutroux's crimes ... there has been an increase in the reporting in Belgium,'' said Christophe Adam, criminology researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain.

Children too young to remember Dutroux's acts are taught about them in school where they also learn about paedophilia and are told that adults should not abuse them. This direct approach initially outraged some parents but is now widely accepted. A year after Dutroux's arrest, Belgium's parliament approved a law creating the post of children's rights commissioner, and organisations to protect children have sprung up, including Child Focus, a European centre for missing and sexually exploited children.

At the time of Dutroux's crimes, the police force was split into divisions which critics said did not share vital information that could have led to an earlier arrest.

''After Dutroux, it was painfully clear that they worked against each other instead of together,'' said Vanderkerckhove.

The police bungling fuelled a belief, held by many Belgians, that Dutroux worked for a mysterious paedophile ring, whose members included police, politicians and other influential members of society. These suspicions were never proven.

Belgium has since merged its police forces to make sure all people working on an inquiry have access to case files and information.

''We have made an improvement now if we see how it went in the case of Stacy and Nathalie,'' added Vanderkerckhove.

NOTORIETY

Initially, Belgian media were critical about why it took police so long to find the girls' bodies -- they were dumped in a drainage system not far from the cafe where they were last seen. But the criticism died down after a suspect was charged with the murders within days.

Belgium may be seeking to shake off Dutroux's shadow inside its borders, but the killer who became Belgium's most reviled man has also affected the country's international reputation.

When Stacy and Nathalie went missing, the story fuelled an international stereotype in some minds.

''Belgium seems like it's quite a peaceful place but it has dark undertones,'' said Dil Kainth, a 32-year-old Canadian visiting London.

Experts point out that, in fact, Belgium's record of child abuse is far from being the worst in Europe.

Italy-based child rights group ChildONEurope found that 5.2 children per 10,000 in Belgium were sexually abused in 2002 -- slightly higher than in neighbouring France where the figure was 4.4 percent but a lot lower than the 12.5 rate in Cyprus.

''It is wrong to talk about a specific phenomenon in Belgium of sex offenders,'' said researcher Adam.

REUTERS