Lecture | This Time For Africa! series
The use of language analyses in Dutch citizenship procedures from a legal and ethical perspective
- Date
- Friday 24 May 2024
- Time
- Serie
- This Time for Africa! series
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.28
Abstract
Since 1999, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) uses language analyses to determine an asylum seeker’s origin. Speech recordings are made and analysed to determine whether an applicant’s speech patterns show expected features of the specific language variety spoken by their claimed group. These language analyses are not only used in asylum procedures, but also in Dutch citizenship procedures. A Dutch citizenship request can be rejected if there is doubt about the applicant’s identity and nationality due to the outcome of a language analysis in a previous procedure.
Danielle Snaathorst is a lawyer specialized in Dutch immigration and citizenship law. She assists clients who have been living in the Netherlands for more than twenty years, have eventually received a regular residence permit (and not an asylum residence permit) and are de facto stateless. Her clients originate from countries where multiple languages are spoken (such as Sierra Leone, Sudan and Burundi) and their Dutch citizenship requests have been rejected due to doubt based on language analyses. During her talk, she will explain the legal framework of the use of language analyses in Dutch citizenship procedures and share case studies from her legal practice.