In the Netherlands, 15 organisations and individuals offer so-called “conversion therapy” aiming to make gay people straight, the health ministry said, as it mulls a ban on the discredited practice which can cause severe mental health problems. The treatments sometime take place in holiday camps and workshops, the ministry said in a study commissioned after several lawmakers called for conversion therapy to be outlawed as it was putting vulnerable youngsters at risk. “Within a religious context, there are various initiatives, agencies and individuals which have emerged in this research that – in neutral terms – attempt to help people with a non-heterosexual orientation,” it said. “There are fifteen organisations or individuals who may also organise peripheral activities (e.g. holiday camps, seminars and workshops) in which a non-heterosexual orientation is regarded as problematic and attempts are made to ‘remedy’ this.”