People Intouch shines the spotlight on whistleblowing
In October, the 3rd Fraud Film Festival was organized in Amsterdam. This festival is a Dutch initiative and aims to stimulate and increase awareness of the impact of fraud. Due to its success, the festival is now being held across the world. People Intouch is one of the founding partners.
The programme included a wide variety of documentaries about fraud and misconduct which ranged from cyber-crime and tax evasion to financial fraud and terrorism financing. The festival concluded with a premiere of ‘Stank voor Dank’ (Small Thanks). This Dutch documentary by Frans Bromet depicts the struggles of four whistleblowers, which are still ongoing for some of them. The stories of these people are perfect examples of why people are reluctant to report misconduct they have witnessed. As Major Victor van Wulfen, a whistleblower in the Royal Dutch Air Force and a victim of retaliation very rightly argues:
‘What it’s primarily about, is the problems that are highlighted which you have to deal with. (…) That’s where we have to start as a whole in the Netherlands, and in particular in the Defence sector. We have to solve the problems and not focus all of the attention on the person who had the courage to highlight these.’
This is exactly what People Intouch provides to its clients with the SpeakUp System. It focuses on what is being reported rather than on who is making the report. In some cases, it ultimately leads to the employee who reported misconduct being removed from the records of the organisation, as illustrated in the SpeakUp case discussed in this Newsletter.
To watch the full documentary (in Dutch), go to: