Maartje van der Woude on discrimination at border controls
In its ruling this week, The Hague Court of Appeal made short work of how the Dutch Border Police allow the colour of a person’s skin to be taken into account when selecting people to check. According to Maartje van der Woude, this ruling reaches far beyond the border police. ‘This is a problem for us all, in which everyone has to take responsibility.'
Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, conducts research on ethnic profiling. In Dutch newspaper Het Parool, she explains how this problem had previously been observed in the case of traffic checks and also refers to the child benefits scandal at the Tax Office, where people with dual passports were checked more thoroughly.
Van der Woude: 'We think: the Netherlands is a tolerant country and has laws against discrimination. So that doesn’t happen here. At least, not systematically like in America. It’s time that we stop denying that this problem exists. And above all, stop thinking we can solve the problem with a training course for employees.’
Find out more?
Read the full article (in Dutch) in Het Parool.