By IPS Correspondents
ROTTERDAM, May 24 2008 (IPS)

The civic integration test that would-be migrants of certain nationalities need to pass before being allowed into the Netherlands to join their families is discriminatory, says a Human Rights Watch report released last week.

The Netherlands is the only nation that requires certain migrants to pass an exam in the country of origin before getting permission to enter. The exam consists of a language test and a knowledge test on Dutch society, and is devised as a means to facilitate better integration. The test falls under the Integration Abroad Act, in effect since March 15, 2006.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) analysed the law in light of the Netherlands' international human rights obligations. The report, 'Discrimination in the Name of Integration, Migrants' Rights Under the Integration Abroad Act', says the test discriminates because it applies only to migrants from specific countries, in particular those coming from Turkey and Morocco. From these countries marriage migration is quite common.

HRW noticed a significant reduction in the number of applications for family reunification and marriages since the introduction of the test. The government agency Statistics Netherlands reports a 60 percent decline in immigration from these countries since 2003.

The candidate takes the test at the Dutch embassy or consulate in the home country via telephone, while sitting at a computer. If the candidate fails, he or she needs to take the test again and pay an examination fee of 350 euros. The first test monitor shows that almost 90 percent of the candidates pass the test.

A spokesperson for the minister of integration Ella Vogelaar told IPS the Act was investigated and discussed extensively before it was passed. The Act will be evaluated next spring, three years after it went into effect.

Under international law, differentiation of treatment is permissible if the goal is to achieve a legitimate purpose, and the criteria for justification are reasonable and objective. The Act has been investigated and approved by the official Advisory Committee on Aliens Affairs, which said the purpose of facilitating better integration was indeed legitimate.

The HRW report judges differently, because the goal of better integration does not apply to all immigrants.

"While the government gives technical reasons to justify the differentiation, it appears as if the Netherlands doesn't want to give rise to undesired immigration flows," Veronika Szente Goldston, Human Rights Watch's advocacy director for Europe told IPS.

"This test gives off the message that certain groups need to prove themselves more than others," she said.

"We are backing this report fully, we have heard these complaints before", Ahmed Charifi, secretary of the National Council for the Moroccan Community in the Netherlands told IPS.

"We believe that the measure works counterproductively, because immigrants need to wait unnecessarily before they can go to the country they want to be a part of."

Art.1, a Dutch expert centre for fighting and preventing discrimination, has earlier brought the Act to the attention of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), which concluded that the test ran foul of the equal treatment law.

"Treating Western and non-Western migrants differently is incomprehensible. There is no substantial proof that an individual from Canada would integrate faster," Dirk Houtzager of Art. 1 told IPS.

"We will use the HRW report to urge the government to evaluate the test earlier than next year, because we seriously doubt its effectiveness," he said.

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