KidsRights, a children’s rights organization wants to implement compulsory vaccination against measles in the Netherlands. It published on Tuesday an annual ranking of countries in the children’s rights field and the Netherlands has dropped ten places in the list in the field of health. They argue this decrease is directly linked to the low vaccination rate.
Marc Dullaert, chairman of the children’s rights organization KidsRights tells Volkskrant that the Netherlands has fallen below a vaccination rate of 95 percent, the limit that the World Health Organization considers safe for four years now. He says, “In recent years, the government has invested heavily in information and persuasion. These were good measures, but the vaccination rate is now at 92.9 percent and has not risen”. Dullaert also argues compulsory vaccination is “inevitable”.
Vaccination debate in the Netherlands
The push for compulsory vaccination has been supported recently. In April, the government said that they would be investigating the advantages and disadvantages of compulsory vaccination to increase the vaccination rate, according to RTL Nieuws. In addition, over 100 daycares in the Netherlands have started banning unvaccinated children. Twenty-five of these centers say they have already refused children. The daycare centers banning unvaccinated children believe “the safety of other children is very important”.
However, according to Volkskrant, several are against compulsory vaccination against measles in the Netherlands. For example, Christian parties believe vaccinating their children is unnatural and object to doing so. Several experts even argue that making parents vaccinate their children will increase distrust in vaccinations.