Minors are regularly involved in terrorist crimes in the Netherlands, with authorities blaming online content that allows children easy access to calls for violence and attacks

Public prosecutors and child protection authorities have been observing the trend of increased violence among the youth for two years. According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), the number of minors identified as suspects in dozens of cases of serious violence and terrorism has been increasing during this period. For Public Prosecutor Dorien Kardol, the number of such cases is alarming, as highlighted by the NL Times portal.

This phenomenon is not only taking place in the Netherlands, but throughout Europe, according to Europol.

The European Union’s police authority, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, has recorded a fourfold increase in attacks and planned attacks. In the last six months alone, two-thirds of the 61 terrorism suspects arrested were under the age of 19. One of the youngest terrorism suspects is a 14-year-old,

– according to the Dutch Het Parool newspaper.

As V4NA highlighted earlier, the situation is becoming increasingly alarming due to a significant rise in the number of juvenile offenders. In Denmark and Norway, for example, there are fears that criminal migrant gangs, who have infiltrated from Sweden, will begin recruiting minors in those countries, as they have done in Sweden. However, recent incidents also point to a surge in violence and juvenile delinquency in France.

Experts believe that this surge in terrorism can be traced back to social media, where young people and minors are exposed to countless pro-terrorism videos and are influenced by them.

English terrorism expert Peter Neumann has already dubbed them TikTok terrorists, who receive abbreviated information about terrorism via the Internet.

For a long time, parents or supervisors from schools and other institutions have not realized that young people are becoming radicalized or that they are consuming violent content. This is because most young people continue to appear normal, they go to school and meet up with friends.

So it’s not always loners who are mistakenly considered to be the most susceptible to such content and crimes,

– Neumann explains.

According to a child protection officer who spoke to Het Parool, young people fall into a hole of such violent content, which is also made more present by the algorithm. And this is what the terrorist organizations are aiming for, as they know exactly how social media works and take advantage of it.

„It often starts with curiosity, then the children are drawn in. Initially, through very violent content, such as explicit images of school shootings, beheadings, and attacks. This is followed by networks in closed chat groups. They get caught up in it by themselves,” the expert said.

According to the child protection authority, there are no general measures for these developments that promise immediate help in such situations. However, parents should educate their children and sit down with them to discuss the dangers of social media and such content. „We teach children at a young age what a child molester is, but we do not point out the trap they can fall into when online,” the experts said.