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Former Refugees Without Birth Certificate Denied Dutch Nationality

Bini Cultural Group
Bini Cultural Group

Former refugees who cannot provide their birth certificates and passports will no longer have the right to request the Dutch Nationality.

Before now, other foreigners residing in the Netherlands, which includes Africans in Netherlands were required to provide their birth certificates and other documents that proves they are who they said they are. But asylum seekers were exempted from this requirement.

According to Fred Teeven, the Dutch minister for immigration, there’s no reason for refugees to be given a different treatment than other immigrants who are normally required to provide their birth certificates, passports and other documents.

During a television programme known as Nieuwsuur, Dorine Manson, the spokeswoman for Vluchtelingenwerk, a Dutch refugee organisation said, ‘the government is creating two-tier citizenship” as they were aware the refugees will be unable to provide these documents when they were granted residency. And according to the organisation, many asylum seekers are now afraid they’ll be sent back to their countries if the law is changed again.

According to another minister from the ministry of immigration who was also at the program “Nieuwsuur”, “foreigners who want to become Dutch have to show they are who they say they are. This is important in stopping identity fraud.”

The requirement for refugees to hand over their birth certificates and passports of countries of their origin to gain Dutch passport was made in 2012. Since then, only 6,000 refugees, out of the 27,000 people that were given amnesty for asylum seekers in 2007 have been able to obtain the Dutch nationality, says the Vluchtelingenwerk.

Photo taken by AfroCosmopolitan at the Hague African Festival 2012.

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