The Dutch government is to introduce new legislation from July 1st which will give it some of the toughest laws in Europe
against forced marriage, for which hundreds of young women from ethnic
minority backgrounds are sent abroad by their families each year.
Forced marriage is already illegal in the Netherlands,
but the department of justice says the problem continues to persist “in
the privacy of the family circle”, and so new penalties are necessary
to mark it “as a serious criminal offence which will not be tolerated in
Dutch society”.
Every resident of the
Netherlands, nationals and foreign nationals, must be registered in the
local town hall, but as things stand, parents have the right to remove a
child’s name from the register if that child has gone to live outside
the country, and the reasons do not have to be specified.
That “loophole” was identified by police and
social workers as the biggest single problem in forcing parents to take
responsibility for the whereabouts of their daughters – and it will now
end.
The new law stipulates that everyone over
the age of 12 will have to report personally to the town hall if they
wish to be removed from the residents’ register – preventing parents,
predominantly fathers, from removing their daughters’ names as an
entitlement.
Reticent
The legislation also warns that if a girl presents herself at her town hall but appears to be in some way reticent, officials will be required to call a domestic violence hotline and instigate an investigation.
On
top of these changes, the maximum jail term for anyone convicted of
enabling or facilitating a forced marriage – or “marital captivity” –
will more than double from nine months to two years.
The
legislation will also have a longer reach, specifying that “both Dutch
and foreign nationals with a permanent place of residence in the
Netherlands will be prosecuted, even if the marriage coercion is
committed abroad.”
The department of foreign
affairs and its embassies abroad have also been told that if they are
approached by women or girls who are being forced into marriage or being
“left behind” after a holiday, they are authorised to provide shelter,
fast-track paperwork, and arrange repatriation.