Netherlands: UN expert urges holistic approach to gender equality

Returning from a fact-finding mission on violence against women in the Netherlands, a United Nations human Rights expert today called for a holistic approach to gender equality in the country, saying special attention should be paid to immigrant, trafficked and refugee women.

“Gender inequality issues are increasingly associated with immigrant women and defined as an integration problem,” said Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, who is unpaid and serves in an independent capacity.

For more than 30 years, the Dutch Government has pursued an active policy for women's equality, yet persisting inequalities still exist between men and women in the job market due to the lack of affordable child care and prioritization for women's reproductive role, the expert said.

She also called for the empowerment of women working in the sex industry, a legal profession in the country. Worried by reports of women caught in illegal trafficking circuits, she said stereotypical perceptions of male and female sexuality must be corrected in order to stop violence and discrimination against women and girls.

She also voiced concern about the Dutch Government's tougher procedures for asylum-seekers who undergo a 48-hour determination process which often wrongly dismisses rape and torture victims unless they can positively demonstrate their trauma. “The worrisome reports of suicides and missing persons, especially minors, in return centres for rejected asylum-seekers also require urgent attention,” Ms. Ertürk said.