There are many refugees from Sudan in Uganda, says migration expert Marlou Schrover (67). ‘The development organisation Simavi was working there to dig water wells, but its funding from the Netherlands was almost completely cut off. More and more similar aid is falling away. Sudanese people fleeing the war in their own country and living in Ugandan camps think: I can die of thirst here, or I can try to go somewhere else. Out of sheer necessity, they try to make the crossing to Europe. The EU partly could have prevented this by not cutting off the flow of funds to aid organisations.’

Meanwhile, there are fierce protests against asylum seekers’ centres (AZCs) in the Netherlands and refugees are met with a very negative attitude in European countries. But, as Schrover argues, the EU is itself fuelling migration through ill-considered policies.

By sharing this kind of factual information, she has been trying to bring nuance to an extremely emotional debate for decades. ‘I keep pushing back relentlessly and saying: “Hey, look at what’s actually happening.”’

 This month, the professor of economic and social history became an emeritus professor. On Friday, she and fellow expert Leo Lucassen will be honoured by their peers during the ‘Pioneers in Migration History’ symposium.

It wasn’t immediately clear that Schrover would pursue higher education. ‘The advice from the teacher at my primary school in Den Bosch was: just send her to housekeeping school. My mother thought: well, that’s not her level, that’s not going to happen.

Where did you end up?
‘There was a boys’ lower secondary school that had just started admitting girls. Many parents weren’t keen on sending their daughters there, but I ended up going there anyway. It soon became clear that I didn’t belong there either, so I moved on to senior general secondary education (HAVO). I then went on to study journalism. I found the news absolutely fascinating. We had a subscription to De Volkskrant and I read it religiously. My parents had a television very early on: no car, but we did have a TV.’

Why didn’t you become a journalist?
‘Back then, journalism was still very much a man’s world. I was twenty years old by the time I finished my degree. I suspected that they would only have me do copying or make coffee. That wasn’t appealing to me. I also didn’t know enough to be a good journalist yet. If you want to try to understand society, a degree in history is a solid foundation.’

You went on to study history and obtained your PhD in Utrecht. What interested you?
‘For a very long time, the field was dominated by what we might call great-white-men history. The books were also mostly written by men. That changed in the 1970s, when interest in other groups arose. The new trend was women’s, workers’ and migration history.’ 

Were you on the barricades yourself?
‘Yes, campaigning for more say in education and university governance. And, of course, women’s rights.’

You came to Leiden in 2003. Did you encounter sexism there?
‘I wasn’t actively obstructed, but it was very noticeable that there were few women on the history staff. There were few role models for female students. And if you gave a seminar on gender, it only attracted female students. No boys would dare to attend.

‘That’s really different now. There are loads of female PhD candidates, and over time that means more lecturers and professors as well. It didn’t happen overnight, but things have improved. The mindset among female students has also changed. When we used to ask first-year students what they wanted to do with their degree, the boys would say: join the diplomats’ training programme, or become a lecturer. The girls didn't know. But around 2008, there was a real turning point. Suddenly, there was a whole new generation of women who did have a plan and, for example, wanted to pursue a PhD.’ 

As a professor, you became an expert on migration. Does your contribution to the heated debate lead to negative reactions?
‘I receive nasty emails and sometimes get called a witch. Of course, women hear that sort of thing more often. But it doesn’t really bother me. You’re a bit of a loser if you resort to that kind of rhetoric.’

Do you think it is possible to say whether migration has a positive or negative impact on the Netherlands?
‘It’s not a matter of simply weighing up the pros and cons. There are all sorts of interrelated factors at play. Waiting lists in healthcare are getting longer because of newcomers. But of course, our population is also ageing rapidly. Each year, 400,000 migrants come to the Netherlands; 40,000 of them are asylum seekers. The majority come here to work. However, in politics the focus is on the asylum seekers.

‘Without labour migration, we’d have a shortage of healthcare staff. Housing construction also relies largely on them.

‘Migrant workers can cause problems, but that is often beyond their control. For example, someone who works in a slaughterhouse but is dismissed due to illness loses both their job and their home. They end up on the streets, may be forced to beg and cause a nuisance.

‘Moreover, the government has partially scrapped the bed-bath-bread programme for undocumented refugees, effectively driving this group onto the streets as well. This only exacerbates the problems: they turn to theft to survive, or they defecate in people’s front gardens. That nuisance then plays straight into the hands of populist politicians. You have to look at those problems honestly and based on facts. And that doesn’t happen in politics or in the media.’

 Why has the debate become so hostile in recent years?
‘That is partly due to shifts in the media landscape. After 11 September and the murder of Fortuyn, more space had to be made for the angry white man, because his voice was not being heard enough. Instead of the mayor, someone from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) or a scientist, it was the person with the most extreme quotes on asylum policy who got to appear on TV. So it’s hardly surprising that people say: “I don’t want those refugees here, because otherwise my daughter will no longer be able to cycle to hockey practice on her own.”

‘Many things are blown out of proportion; take the anti-asylum centre demonstrations in Grave, for example. There was an abundance of media attention for angry citizens who threatened municipal council members and threw eggs and fireworks. Many of those demonstrators had been sent to Grave by the organisation Defend Netherlands. The FvD and PVV parties further stoked the flames. Journalists, as well as municipal administrators, should pay more attention to such effects.

‘A few months after the demonstrations, the municipal council decided to extend the asylum centre’s location until 2055. One journalist from the Brabants Dagblad goes there and asks: “What’s it like here?” And the residents say: “We haven’t noticed a thing; we let ourselves be frightened.”’ 

Young people with a migrant background do come into contact with the police more often. Why is that?
‘That’s mainly a matter of social class. In the 1950s, it was young white troublemakers who hung around on mopeds outside the chip shop, harassing girls, shoplifting and getting into fights. Through migration, the social underclass has partly been replaced by people with a migrant background. From the 1970s onwards, they became young Turkish and Moroccan troublemakers. There’s also been a sort of ethnicisation. When these boys misbehave, it’s specifically linked to the Moroccan or Turkish culture. When in fact, they’re just troublemakers.’

Former Prime Minister Schoof said: ‘People are experiencing an asylum crisis.’
‘That was bizarre, wasn’t it? There is no crisis. It’s policy without any factual basis.’

The new cabinet is also introducing strict measures. What do you think of that?
‘What stands out to me is that they’re bringing back policies that have failed before. One example is the two-status system, which existed since the 1980s. A-status – recognised refugee – granted more rights than B-status, which was given to people the government didn’t want to recognise as refugees but couldn’t send back either.

‘From the very start, so many people said: “That’s not going to work.” But the state kept it going for a very long time, until the IND and asylum lawyers were at their wits’ end and the judiciary became overburdened.’

‘I expect the system will end up before the administrative court of the Council of State, which will rule that it cannot be implemented. But then the cabinet can say: “We tried.”’

So they themselves know that it’s not feasible?
‘Of course they do. It’s not as if the ministries responsible are full of dimwits. When I speak to civil servants, they know full well how things stand. But they are bound by the political landscape.

‘It is frustrating, though. Politicians can’t keep duping people. At some point, a large part of the population will understand how things really are.’

‘At the same time, you do see some real change taking place. In 2023, almost all political parties had asylum policy as their top priority in the elections. It really got on my nerves. But by 2025, there was already much more focus on tackling other issues such as the housing shortage, for example, dealing with deliberate vacancy.’ 

Do you expect to see new flows of refugees as a result of the war in the Middle East?
‘Yes, but not so much from Iran. It’s difficult to leave the country and the people there still have some hope that things will get better. But Lebanon is a different story. There, you already see large numbers of people fleeing from the south to the north. Those refugees often do not have strong roots in Lebanon, so we may see a new flow towards Europe.

‘But that could also happen in South America. In Venezuela, there are three million residents with a Venezuelan-Spanish background. They can obtain Spanish citizenship, and now that it’s no longer possible for them to go to the United States, they will be much more likely to consider moving to the EU.’

Will you miss the university?
‘I’m not at all sorry to be rid of all that paperwork, but I’m definitely going to miss teaching. I’m not disappearing into a black hole, though: I still have PhD candidates to supervise and will have more time for research. I might also start teaching Dutch at an asylum seekers’ centre.’