The number of reports of discrimination submitted to police and official bodies rose again last year, with the national hotline Discriminatie.nl receiving more than twice as many reports as in 2023.

It is the fifth consecutive year that discrimination reports in the Netherlands have increased, according to the Discriminatiecijfers in 2024 report, which compiles figures from a range of official agencies.

Almost half of the complaints (45%) concerned discrimination based on origin or nationality, 29% were related to sexual orientation, and 9% focused on antisemitism.

Website Discriminatie.nl received nearly 15,000 reports in 2024, compared with around 7,000 the previous year. The report’s authors attribute part of the rise to growing awareness of the hotline, but also note that public statements by commentators and politicians triggered waves of new reports.

For example, more than 1,000 people filed complaints following an episode of television programme Vandaag Inside in which presenter Johan Derksen claimed that MP Habtamu de Hoop was not Frisian.

In total, more than 5,000 reports were submitted in response to remarks by commentators and politicians, although over half of these were retroactive complaints about the government’s Coronavirus vaccination campaign and Covid pass system.

The report stresses that the figures only offer a partial picture of the scale of discrimination in the Netherlands.

Research by the national statistics agency CBS has shown that just one in ten incidents of discrimination is officially reported.