Reference Index off

The Reference Index Antilleans (VIA) is off, announced Minister Ella Vogelaar (Living, Districts, and Integration, PvdA) this morning during a press conference in Fort Amsterdam. Vogelaar says that she has established that there is amongst the Antilleans ‘tactically very wide resistance’ against the separate registration of Antillean high-risk youth in the Netherlands, and has understood that this is experienced as a very painful symbol.

Instead of the VIA, the problem youth are registered in a general registration system, in which the ethnical origin is not mentioned.

Vogelaar indicated after the press conference that she will send a letter to the Lower House informing them of the decision. “I am not committed to the VIA. It’s not a sacred cow, but an instrument to help young persons. If it doesn’t work because of the resistance, then another way must be found, for which there is support.” Vogelaar emphasizes that improving the assistance is important to her.

Until last month, the minister thought that with rational arguments, she could negate the objection to the VIA. The assembly ‘Strong Women in the Kingdom’ turned out to be the eye-opener that made her realize that it was not about rationality, but about deeper emotions.
The young persons are now registered in the Cross-reference High-risk Young people (VIR). This happens on citizen-service-number, with only his/her name and the assisting organizations in charge of the young person.

Even though no ethnicity is registered, social workers are incited to mention the origin in their own dossiers. Vogelaar says that knowing the cultural background of the young persons is necessary. “This is important for the approach and awareness of the social workers.”
The VIR is currently tested as a pilot project in 40 municipalities. Of the 21 so-called Antillean-municipalities, 6 are already in the pilot project. The other 15 are now being included. Vogelaar couldn’t tell how much that pilot project costs. She did say though that her taskforce has advised to allocate an extra 10 million euro every year for the Antillean-municipalities. It’s not clear yet whether the Finance-minister is going to approve that.

The high-risk persons that are not registered anywhere and do not have a citizen-service-number (BSN), get a so-called reference-service-number (VSB) to be included in the VIR. There is no longer a maximum age (26) for receiving assistance. Premier Emily de Jongh-Elhage (PAR) is very pleased. She had an intense conversation with Vogelaar last month and explained that this is not acceptable for the Antillean people, of whom 95 percent have chosen for a close relation within the Kingdom. Vogelaar as well as De Jongh-Elhage emphasized that it’s just a small number of people and that the other part of the in the Netherlands living Antilleans are doing really well.

The first Dutch party that gave a reaction on the dropping of the VIA, is the ChristenUnie. The party of the minister of Youth and Family, André Rouvoet considers this as victory. CU is of the opinion that the VIA hurts the conversations about the political structure and endangers the processing of the new Antillean program in the Netherlands, because the Antillean community has indicated that they won’t show as much involvement if the VIA is maintained.

(Source: National newspaper Amigoe)

10 November, 2008