You can try to take everything away from a person but even with the most basic things that you have left you can create your own universe. All it takes is a pen and paper.

My Story: From Children’s Home to PhD

For many people I meet today, crime and injustice is an abstract and distant concept. For me, it never was. Violence and crime have shaped both my personal journey and academic path. I grew up in environments marked by neglect, abuse, and institutional harm—places where I experienced firsthand how systems can fail those who need protection the most.

My secondary education took me across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. My trauma response was to escape—not just from individuals, but from the very institutions that had failed me. I fled Germany, only to discover that institutions elsewhere are not necessarily more just. I found a sense of freedom, but saw that others around me remained trapped.

I was driven by a need to prove wrong those who never believed in me. But more than that, I wanted to be heard. In our society, it often seems you must first “be someone” before your voice matters. So I set out to become someone: I completed a Bachelor in Liberal Arts and Sciences, followed by a Master’s in Victimology and Criminal Justice at Tilburg University, and am now finalizing my PhD at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (to be defended at the end of 2025).

I currently work as a researcher at the Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) in The Hague, where I study class justice. The justice system is shaped by and for the educated and affluent—and it tends to serve them best. Meanwhile, those who are poor, less formally educated, or from migration backgrounds are disproportionately disadvantaged. This imbalance explains, for instance, a recent case of a convicted rapist who escaped a sentence because he was seen as “young and talented”. At the same time, marginalized individuals are disproportionately overrepresented in prisons.

In parallel, I work at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (KU Leuven), contributing to the “Trauma-Informed Practice for Teachers, Youth Workers, and Parents” project. We develop practical tools—guidelines, case studies, an app, podcast, videos, and a chatbot—all designed to support those who work with children. These are the kinds of tools I wish every adult in my life had once known.

I often wish I could have reassured my younger self that things would eventually fall into place—that one day, she would dedicate herself to knowledge. But despite all the degrees and studying, my deepest learning came from the quiet resilience of that little girl who started writing and reflecting long before any institution took her seriously. Today, the injustices I research are not simply academic topics. They are lived experiences that continue to fuel my commitment to prevention, better laws and policies, and stronger protection for those who need it most.