Coalition wants to end Moroccan names policy
The governing Christian democrats (CDA), Labour (PvdA) and small Christian party ChristenUnie want Dutch municipalities to stop presenting lists of Arabic names on behalf of the Moroccan government to young Moroccan parents.
Moroccan parents having a child in the Netherlands should be able to choose a name themselves, say CDA and PvdA. This is not possible at the moment, as municipalities maintain lists of names approved by the Moroccan government. If a name is not on the list, the child cannot have it.
Presenting the list is in fact a service to a foreign government, said CDA MP Mirjam Sterk yesterday on Elsevier magazine’s website. She is working with PvdA MP Jeroen Dijsselbloem on a private members’ bill that can also count on support from ChristenUnie, the third coalition party.
CDA, PvdA and ChristenUnie propose that municipalities should in future refer to the Moroccan consulate instead of giving the list of suitable names to the parents themselves, Elsevier reports. It is unclear however whether the coalition parties want to continue to allow Morocco to decide whcih names can be given to for children born in the Netherlands.
The question was brought up last May by Moussa Aynan, a PvdA local council member in Haarlem. He wanted to be able to choose a name for his child freely and started collecting signatures against the policy that all municipalities maintain. After he was threatened by angry Muslims a number of times, he dropped the action - and complained of lack of support from his PvdA.
Aside from this issue, all children born of Moroccan parents are automatically Moroccan, even if both parents were born in the Netherlands. They cannot refuse this. The last Dutch government tried to change this policy because it could have a segregating effect, but did not succeed.
Source: NIS News, 29 August 2007
