Dutch Scientific Humanitarian CommitteeHomosexuality was legal in the Netherlands after the Napoleonic Law of 1811.
In 1911 the new Dutch government was a coalition of Catholic and Calvinist religious parties and the age of consent for homosexual activity was raised from 16 to 21. This resulted in the formation in the Hague of the Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee under the leadership ofJacob Schorer.
Magnus Hirschfeld's Sexological Institute in Berlin was used as a model. This was disbanded by the Nazis in 1933, but when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in 1940 they were less successful in destroying the NWHK and the movement went undergound until 1945 when the still-existing national gay and lesbian organisation COC (Cultuur-en Ontspanningscentrum, or Centre for Culture and Recreation) provided the basis for a new start.