Amsterdam - The ethnicity of Dutch 'problematic' youths should be registered in a special database, according to the biggest government coalition party Christian Democrats. Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf on Monday reported Mirjam Sterk, lawmaker for the Christian Democrats, was to demand the government to change existing legislation to that extent.
Sterk wants all so-called 'problematic' youths - teenagers who have a police record, but also youths who have family or educational problems assisted by Dutch social welfare organizations - to be included in this database.
"There is a substantial group of Dutch youths running bigger risks solely because of their ethnic background," Sterk was quoted in De Telegraaf.
"This concerns criminal youths from the Dutch Antilles," she said, "but it may also concern women from Somalia or Ethiopia who may be forced to undergo female circumcision. Therefore social workers and medics should know the youngsters' ethnicities."
Sterk's demand comes shortly after the highest advisory body to the Dutch government, the Raad van State, decided that a standard inclusion of people's ethnicity in an electronic database of all Dutch youths, violates Dutch law and should be prohibited.
However, in another decision in September 2008 the Raad van State did not object to registering the ethnicity of youths with a proven police record.
On June 4, a joint study by researchers from Rotterdam's Erasmus University and the Royal University of Utrecht, said that in Rotterdam 55 per cent of
Dutch-Moroccans aged 18 to 24 and 40 per cent of young males from the Dutch Antilles and Surinam have a criminal record, with 90 per cent returning to criminal activity after the first time.
Among native Dutch nationals from Rotterdam, 18.4 per cent have a police record of whom 60 per cent returns to criminal activity.
