View from Fez just had a very interesting post on the new way to abandon your wife/children – take them back to Morocco, steal their papers/passport, and return to your foreign home. Problem solved! This was first reported by Radio Netherlands, and the outlook for these women doesn’t look good. The Dutch Immigration and Integration Minister, Rita Verdonk, stated that she was going to enact measures to combat the despicable practice, but offered no help or solutions for those affected.
As I posted on both View from Fez and Cat In Rabat, my husband knows a man from the region of Agadir who attempted this ploy with his wife. They were living in France, and the marriage was floundering, when he convinced his wife that making a trip to Morocco would be good for them. They arrived in Morocco, and he immediately stole her papers and began proceedings at the local tribunal to divorce her. Unfortunately for him, she reported the loss to the police, and they were somehow able to issue papers, perhaps in partnership with the French embassy, to allow her re-entry into France. This took some time, of course, and the beleaguered wife was able to confront the thief in his den several months later – by showing up at their house in France and blessing him with the wicked tongue that Moroccan women are famous for! She then divorced him, remarried, and now lives happily in France, sans jerk ex-husband.
As for the poor girls formerly from the Netherlands, I don’t hold out much hope for their return – especially not with “Iron Rita” Verdonk in office. This is the same woman who enacted the infamous “immigration test.”