Former members of the evangelical church group De Deur (the Door) have set up a foundation and are campaigning to have the organisation classified as a “dangerous sect”, local paper De Stentor reported on Monday.

The church came to the Netherlands from the United States in the 1970s and now has around 60 chapters nationwide.

De Stentor spoke to former members and their families, who said the church had taken over their lives. Many have been left with trauma, the paper reported.

The pastor and his wife are seen as heads of the community and decide how members should live.

Members must obtain their permission to start a relationship or marry. “We were going to marry, but the pastor saw ‘dark clouds’ and said I should break it off,” one former member told the paper. Women are also considered subservient to men.

Another former member, Joel Crosby, broke away six years ago after the pastor was involved in a sex scandal. He has since written a book about his experiences and established the foundation for former members.

“I consider it my duty to show that this is a sectarian organisation,” he told the paper. “This is a church driven by the evangelism of fear,” he said.

The organisation’s current leader in the Netherlands, Nomdo Schuitema, told the paper that with 4,000 churches and a 50-year history, “things go wrong sometimes and there are always people who are not happy”.