Cutting of Family Ties in the Context of the Colonization of the Dutch (East) Indies

This socio-legal research in the field of family law focusses on the cutting of family ties in the context of Dutch colonial history (1600 until 1950). The aim of the paper is threefold. Firstly we delve into the scope and impact of the cutting of family ties related to the colonial past. Secondly we analyse to what extent this cutting of family ties gives rise to recognition and compensation payments. Thirdly we will scrutinise to what extend these family ties might be restored. Of course all these questions will be looked at from the perspective of a family law- and socio-legal perspective. Morever we will go into the relation with migration and discrimination/racism. We will explore the case of the so called Njais and their descendants in the Dutch East Indies or present day Indonesia. The VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) settled in the area in 1602. Local women, the Njais, became the concubines of Dutch, but also other European, men; at first enslaved and later on 'voluntarily'. They were both his housekeeper and his sexual partner, which often led to children being born. Mixed marriage was rare as it was at first not allowed and later on frowned upon. Concubinage was by the VOC seen as a practical option considering the lack of European women. Sometimes the mixed children born out of wedlock were legally acknowledged by the father, in which case they became European; this meant severing the legal ties with their mother, the njai. Often the mother was casted away and not allowed to see their children anymore, especially when the Dutch father repatriated or married a European wife. Thus family ties between the mother, the Njai, and children were either legally, or factually, or both broken.