Women dumped in Morocco?

Radio Netherlands is carrying a disturbing story which, it would seem, is not only a problem for women from Holland, but possibly other European countries.

It happens each year - often during the summer holidays - to between 20 and 30 women visiting Morocco: they are left behind against their will by their husband or father. Their passports are taken off them and they are abandoned to their fate, while the rest of the family travels back to the Netherlands.

It's an easy way for a husband to separate from his wife, or for a father to get rid of a difficult daughter, but the consequences for the woman in question are enormous. She can't return to the Netherlands, which is where all her belongings are, and there's nowhere she can turn to for help in Morocco.

This is the situation as explained by a number of these women to Dutch Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk when she visited the country in June 2005. At the time, the minister seemed moved by their problems and promised to take measures to combat this practice of 'dumping' women.

When it comes to such measures, however, Khadija Hamzaoui hasn't noticed any changes so far. Now aged 22, this Moroccan-born woman was dumped in the country by her father seven years ago and is now trying to get back to the Netherlands. But that's no easy task. Her story is typical of those or many abandoned women. Her father brought her to the Netherlands, together with her mother and brother, in 1998.

Once here, she says that she made good progress at the special classes she attended for new arrivals who need to master the Dutch language. However, things were going as well in her relationship with her father, as Khadija - now in Morocco - explains: "He wanted me to wear a headscarf and actually he didn't want me to go to school and he kept me at home more and more frequently. He hit me too, I was scared of him."

In 1999, the family travelled to Morocco by bus for a holiday. Khadija's father had given her sleeping pills and when she came round again she was in a village in the Rif mountains surrounded by people she couldn't understand. They turned out to be her father's parents, who spoke Berber. They had no electricity, running water or telephone. She spent five years there, but then her grandfather had had enough of her and she was moved to other relatives in Tangiers.

Khadija explains what happened next:
"In May 2005, I couldn't carry on anymore and I drank a whole bottle of weed killer. But I was found and I survived. Then my brother came from the Netherlands to help me get back. I found someone in Tetouan who helped me put my whole story down on paper. We sent that to the Dutch embassy."

And this is where little can be seen as yet of the measures announced by Minister Verdonk. The embassy says it can't do anything with the fact that Khadija has already lived in the Netherlands and has informed her that she must first take an integration test in Morocco, at a cost of 830 euros.

This seems to tally with the conclusion reached by the minister a year ago after her visit to Morocco. She said that she thought she wouldn't be able to do much for the women who had already been abandoned, and she was more focussed on measures aimed at preventing it from happening in the future.

Ms Verdonk said at the time, "I think above all that we need to get tough with the men". The measures to be taken in that regard are still awaited.


Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news