Atypical PVV member Ingrid Coenradie also talks to dissenters

When PVV ministers were not welcome last fall at the kick-off of Orange the World, the campaign of the United Nations against violence against women and girls, Ingrid Coenradie was particularly picked up. As party leader of Liveable Rotterdam, she fought against intimidation on the street, as State Secretary for Justice and Security on behalf of the PVV, she works on legislation against psychological violence. Time and again she brings 'femicide' to the attention, violence against women with fatal outcome. She herself was assaulted as a teenager where she had to fight herself loose, she said in an interview.

But the Dutch Organizational Committee Un Women did not want a single PVV member at the launch of the campaign, due to interventions in the budget for development aid that would attribute women's safety. And if PVV members did, they had to be critically questioned and stay far away from the campaignogos. That was the municipality of Enschede, co-organizer of the theme evening with speeches, too far, after which Un Women turned out to Alkmaar. Without PVV people. « Unheard and unacceptable » that « calculated (UN Women) occupies this position, » the State Secretaries noted Vicky Maeijer (Zorg) and Coenradie.

As State Secretary, Ingrid Coenradie (37) is in the spotlight, which she does not shy away from. It is atypical for the PVV. She is approachable and is vulnerable, for example when she told parliament about her experiences with sexual violence. She starts the conversation with dissenters, listens carefully and also arouses sympathy outside her political blood type.

As now also at UN Women. In a conversation at the Ministry of Justice, the campaign issue was discussed in November. Director Marije Cornelissen of Un Women does not want to say anything about that, only that the rapprochement with Coenradie came. « We appreciated that. »

'The future of the VVD'

This Friday, Coenradie will present its approach to the cell deficiency to the Council of Ministers – the most brisant file in her portfolio. She proclaimed 'code black' for the Dutch penitentiary institutions. She may grab in the short term to a measure where the PVV horrors: sent prisoners up to two weeks earlier. Party leader Geert Wilders tweeted that he would never accept this – « no way » – whatever he would have bitten her in a conversation at the ministry. « I'm not going to get on, » said Coenradie About this in a TV interview with Eva Jinek. « No way. Because when I get on, the problem remains ”

She is called engaging, 'Rotterdam'. Sturdy on safety – « no bullshit in the neighborhood, no terror in front of the door » – and hard on migration. « I often told you that you asked for things that could not be done by law, » said mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb in July in a farewell word on her departure for national politics. « Now you are about the law. » Behind him, Coenradie laughed her thumbs. Aboutaleb also said he would follow 'with interest' how his successor as mayor would be given the space of the cabinet, « to get everything you wanted to realize (in Rotterdam) realized. »

As a teenager, Coenradie walked along in the silent journey after the murder of Pim Fortuyn, in 2002. She was active in the European Youth Parliament and after her HBO study staff and work, she joined the VVD board in Tiel, where she lived together at the time. She was one of a hundred people in their twenties who were portrayed in the 'The Future of the VVD' project, just like current VVD MP Bente Becker. On an old profile page, Coenradie writes that it suited a party that stimulates authenticity, entrepreneurship, freedom, ambition, realizing dreams within a good prosperous country in every citizen.

Mark Smits, now VVD party leader in the Gelderse Provincial States, remembers her as 'very ambitious'. When a VVD campaign bus with Henk Kamp visited Tiel in 2011, Coenradie arranged a coffee appointment at his Ministry of Social Affairs. The VVD celebrity says that he cannot get her to her from that time, but he « always time » for talents.

Transvestite duo

Tiel was a trip and the VVD turned out to be. She was more Rita Verdonk than Mark Rutte, she said about it later. As a mid -twigs, she returned to Rotterdam, where she grew up in a musical and complicated family.

Before he had children, her father regularly performed in a transvestite duo at gay citizens' manifestations. At a Christian school he was fired for blasphemy, according to the judge unlawful. Until he got to know the woman with whom he had two children, he had only been intimate with men. « That just belonged to my father, » says the State Secretary as they recess just before the spring recess NRC speak to. With her parents, who now live in Spain, she has no contact for a few years now. « Painful and sad, » she calls it.

She had a difficult childhood. Her father was a music teacher and piano teacher, her mother worked as an executive secretary. They often moved. At the age of twelve her life changed abruptly. Her mother got a cerebral infarction and never completely became the old one, her father lost his hearing. In an autobiographical book, published in -house, her father writes that his teenage daughter « with her tidy character » did what she could do for her parents and brother. She also followed Havo Music and Dance, towards classical piano.

It was during that period that Coenradie, only thirteen years old, was assaulted by her boss in the snack bar where she worked. A few years later that happened again, when going out. She connected her political commitment to a safe city to these personal experiences, she told it Ad. She also mentioned that in both cases it concerned « Moroccan men. » « I thought for a long time that most men in that group behave like that. » She left that idea behind, she said – « luckily I don't think like then » – but she no longer lost the unsafe feeling on the street.