How does it work in the Netherlands?

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Asylum seekers: flights do not happen just like that
 
Every year thousands of people from other countries come to the Netherlands. Then it is not about vacationers, businessmen and government leaders from other countries. No, it concerns people who have fled their own country and are looking for accommodation in the Netherlands.
 
Threatened by government
 
For example because there is war in their own country. Or because they are threatened by their belief or opinion. The Netherlands is a pretty safe country. If the minister does not agree with you, he will not send you a threatening letter. But there are countries where people who do not agree with the government are threatened, beaten, put in prison or even killed.
 
Civil war
 
There are also countries where entire population groups are on the run, because a civil war is being fought. For example, because a certain group wants to become independent, or wants more land, which belongs to another group.
 
Suppose that there is suddenly a war in the Netherlands. Then it may just be that the father of a boyfriend suddenly tries to drive your father away. Away friendship. And with a bit of bad luck also away home, away car, live away. Refugees are people, often children or young people of your own age, who have seen how their homes were set on fire. Whoever shot soldiers. People who have seen how their father or brother was killed. How their sister or mother was raped. Or who themselves have been raped.
 
What would you do in such a situation? Probably the same as many people in countries where there is a civil war or where the government oppresses them: for fear you leave everything behind and flee. Looking for a safe place to live.
 
On the run
 
Around fifty million people are fleeing all over the world. Fifty million. That is almost three times as much as the entire Dutch population.
 
To neighboring countries
Many people flee on foot. They are looking for a safe place as close as possible in the neighborhood. This is often a neighbor. In the case of a civil war in the Netherlands, you could, for example, flee to Belgium or Germany.Now these are prosperous countries. Most refugees come from countries like Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most neighboring countries are much poorer there. As a refugee you have to do it with - in the best case - a place in a tent camp or just on the street. In the hope that you can quickly return to your own home. But with the fear that there is nothing left of that 'house'.
Further away
Some refugees go further away than a neighboring country. In 1959, more than a hundred countries agreed to receive people who can no longer live safely in their own country. They signed the Geneva Refugee Convention for this.

 
Asylum
 
The Netherlands also catches these people. A refugee asks the Dutch government if he or she can live in the Netherlands. That is the asylum request. The word 'asylum' is the only word they need to know. And usually the only word they know. From the moment of this asylum request someone is asylum seeker. Asylum. A word that we often associate first with an animal shelter. But also a word that offers refugees protection. Because they can no longer live safely in their own country.
 
Long history of refugee reception
In the Netherlands, receiving refugees is nothing new. Already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Flemings, Walloons and the French Huguenots fled to our country. They were expelled from their own country because of their Protestant faith. The Netherlands was also a refuge for war refugees during the First and even Second World Wars. You could even say that the Netherlands is made up of and by migrants, just like the United States and Australia. Leiden, for example, consisted of more than half of refugees four hundred years ago. Several streets are named after descendants of Huguenots, such as Lemaire, Legrand, Dupont and so on.
 
Not everyone can live here
 
So the Netherlands has a lot of experience with childcare. This does not mean that everyone can automatically live in our country. Only people who really can not go back because it is too dangerous in their own country can stay in the Netherlands. Whoever pretends, quickly falls through the basket.
 

Strict research
Employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the IND, examine after the asylum request whether someone really can no longer live in their own country. First, the IND investigates why someone has fled from his own country. The people who can not return because of their political conviction, religion, nationality or race, are admitted as asylum seekers. Whoever pretends, falls quickly through the basket and has to go back immediately.Some people may stay for a few years, until it is quiet in their own country again. And others may stay in the Netherlands forever.
 
 
 
Shredded families
 
Most children and young people come to the Netherlands with their parents. Some see their families back in the Netherlands. Like a family from Iraq. The father had fled first. The mother and the son only followed a year later.In the Netherlands they saw each other again, until then they did not even know if they were still alive. Often families are also split. Then a father and son live in the Netherlands, while the mother with daughter are in Greece for example. You are all safe, but you are not together. When and if you see each other again, is uncertain.
 
Children and young people
There are also children and young people arriving all alone in the Netherlands. Without parents, without family. They are called unaccompanied minor foreigners, abbreviated to amv. The very youngest amv who came to the Netherlands was only eight years old! They need special guidance and help. They also get it.
 
The COA
 
Until people know what will happen to them, they can choose to live in the shelter. They then end up in an asylum seekers' center in our country. Reception is provided by the COA, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. COA helps asylum seekers of any age to prepare for the future. Wherever it is: in the Netherlands or anywhere else.
 
Living as an asylum seeker
At the reception location, asylum seekers are given food and drink and a bed to sleep in. Children and young people go to school and to sports clubs. It seems like a very ordinary life. Looks like. Because that's not it, of course.People have had to leave almost everything in their own country. Often they have nothing more with them than the clothes they wore. Friends, friends, pets, their own things, music: everything they are attached to is left behind or destroyed. The family receives pocket money from which they have to buy everything.
 
 
For asylum seekers everything in the Netherlands is new and unknown: the language, the buildings, the climate. So it takes some getting used to. But not only for them. The Dutch also have to get used to their presence. There are many prejudices about asylum seekers. They would be lazy and would not want to work, or just come to our country for a job. The asylum seekers' center would be a kind of hotel and they would steal everything that is loose and stuck.
 
As far as that work is concerned, asylum seekers are allowed to perform paid work in the Netherlands 24 weeks per year. In addition, asylum seekers may volunteer. If someone has received a residence permit, he may start working more. As far as stealing is concerned, not everyone can be trusted. This applies to Dutch people and to asylum seekers. Maybe there is an asylum seeker at your school. Or do you live near a reception location. Look a bit further than the outside. Think and give each person a (new) chance.