Step Forward, or Forever Hold you Peace: Penalising Forced Marriages in the Netherlands

Being confronted with the import of formerly unknown cultural practices, the European public authorities are expected to set clear public standards regarding the alleged harmful nature of such practices. The adopted solutions are often of a legal nature, using the law as a vehicle to frame certain social behaviour as socially unacceptable. One of the practices that have been subject to framing in terms of law and gender are what is commonly referred to as forced marriages. Calling upon human rights law, Europe’s policy is in favour of penalization of forced marriages. However, such an appeal holds the risk of strategically misuse of human rights law for political benefit. Next to a clear risk penalisation being symbolic, diversity issues bear within a risk of xenophobia. Thus penalisation of diversity issues needs to be analysed scrupulously. This paper addresses the issue of the penalisation of forced marriages in Europe, with special attention paid to a draft law recently submitted by the Dutch government, addressing the issue which actors and factors have contributed forced marriages being put on the European and Dutch political agenda.