Each year, around 80 Moroccan-Dutch women report that they have been dumped in Morocco during a visit from the Netherlands. That’s according to Amsterdam-based daily Het Parool. Accompanying the women are more than 100 children.
The women have previously emigrated to the Netherlands and acquired a Dutch residence permit through marriage to a spouse with Dutch citizenship. But when the marriage fails, their husband lures them to Morocco under false pretences only to leave them behind, stranded with neither passport or residence permit.
The figures come from the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands (MVVN) and the Support Re-emigrants Foundation (SSR), the two organisations to which the women are able to report their situation. But those who do come forward are most likely only the tip of the iceberg, the groups conclude.
The abandoned women have often been exploited, abused and kept socially isolated during their marriage in the Netherlands, Het Parool reports. The paper says there are even men who dump one woman after another in Morocco.
There is no law under which the women can appeal to the Moroccan police for help, and the Dutch police are powerless to intervene in Morocco.