Over the last week, the focus of all media attention in the Netherlands has been Mauro Manuel, the 18 year-old Angolan who came to the Netherlands on his own at age 10, fleeing appalling living conditions in Angola. This country has a bit of a tradition in welcoming asylum seekers and political refugees (as of 2008, there were around 70.000 asylum seekers in the country), but it also has bizarre procedures for those wishing to obtain the official status of political refugee (another famous recent case was that of Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
Mauro arrived on his own when he was 10, and the policy here is (thank God at least for that!) that unaccompanied children under 18 are not simply sent back home even if they cannot obtain the official refugee status. So Mauro has been living with a foster family since then, who is by now the only family he actually knows. And while for most youngsters turning 18 is a reason to rejoice (“I can drive!”), for Mauro it is not; he is no longer allowed to stay in the Netherlands, in spite of being fully settled and having virtually no contacts in his country of birth Angola. Like him, there are a few hundred children living with foster families who, for lack of an official refugee permit, must leave the country when they turn 18.
Mauro’s story has caused an enormous commotion in the country, with public opinion massively supporting his cause. It has in fact become a huge political issue, as the different parties took his case to represent the policies that should be enforced for refugees and asylum seekers. Yesterday, the Dutch house of representatives (Tweede Kamer) voted against the two motions which had been proposed to allow him to stay in the country, so he must leave.
You may be wondering: why was he allowed to stay until now, and as if by magic must leave upon turning 18? It’s no magic; it’s called the welfare state. As is well known, the Netherlands has a strong and present welfare state, which is one of the things that make me proud of my adopted country (which is not to say that it doesn’t have its perverse side-effects). But now that he is 18, if Mauro had the legal status of refugee, he would be entitled to social security benefits; and if Mauro would obtain this status, this would open the precedent for the hundreds of child-refugees in the country – before you know it, everybody would be smuggling their kids into the country so they could be entitled to benefits upon turning 18 (the familiar argument…). So the other side of the coin of a strong welfare state is a strong gate-keeping mentality.
This morning my daughter asked me whether Mauro would be allowed to stay in the Netherlands with his mummy and daddy (she had seen his case discussed in the news-for-children tv show she watches at school), and I told her that no, he wouldn’t. She doesn’t get it, and neither do I.
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