Netherlands: Moroccans call Moroccan community to assume responsibility for youth crime

Netherlands: Moroccans call Moroccan community to assume responsibility for youth crime

Moroccan-Dutch professionals and organizations published a manifesto in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant against crime by Moroccan-Dutch youth.

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Our society is increasingly being confronted with crime and violence by Moroccan-Dutch youth. The trouble caused by these youth has developed into a problem that imposes on our society. Tangible as well as intangibly.

Additionally, this trouble is meanwhile also a problem for the Moroccan-Dutch community. The criminality of these youth results in Dutch of Moroccan origin more and more often being seen as second-grade citizens, where they are more and more often just tolerated, rather than accepted. That happens moreover since the violence of these youth has taken on harsher and harsher forms and claims more and more victims.

The Moroccan community still deals with the fighting this criminality too passively and gives the impression that trouble caused by these youth is not its problem. Incorrect. It is precisely Dutch of Moroccan origin who should do everything to stop this criminality. It is 'their youth' who cause this trouble, and they are blamed for it by society.

With all the negative images formed by that. Additionally, the crime increasingly more and more often targets the Moroccan community, where more and more people become the victims of youth violence.

Although we realize that society can't charge the Moroccan Dutch community for these problems, we do think that our community should develop initiatives on this point and in that way assume more responsibility.

It's high time that the Moroccan community will play a more active role in preventing and fighting this crime among Moroccan-Dutch youth. The action-group 'Stop criminality of Moroccan youth' will be a platform for all Dutch of Moroccan origin who thnk that it shouldn't be tolerated anymore and that the Moroccan-Dutch community too should assume responsibility.

The action-group will pursue the goal of setting up a network of professional and other interested parties in which all Dutch of Moroccan origin could join with the goal of preventing and fighting crime among Moroccan-Dutch youth.

This network with act both preventively as well as correctively. Preventively in the sense that attention would be drawn to youth who threaten to go off the path at an early stage and they'll be put straight by the lcoal community and local leaders.

Correctively in the sense that criminal youth who cause trouble will be pressured and continuously followed. We don't aim only at the youth but also at the parents, ie, their parents and education institutions.

The action group will examine together with the local Moroccan community which roll the community can play in fighting Moroccan youth criminality. We strive by this to again re-socialize these youth. We intend to do this through intensive guidance which will ensure that they will get an education, eventually get a job and also plan their free time meaningfully.

We realize that this is a difficult and work-intensive process, but it is the only way to get these youth to toe the line again.

There will be the days on the subject and informational gathering focusing on what the Moroccan community can do to fight youth crime. The Moroccan mosque organizations will be closely involved in preventing and fighting this Moroccan youth crime. The action group will advise professionals who engage in fighting Moroccan youth crime. And will also work closely with youth institutions and prison imams.


Source: Volkskrant (Dutch)

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