ABSTRACT
This paper has traced the history of marriage migration fromMorocco to Germany since its inception following the bilateral recruitment treaty in the 1960s. Since the recruitment ban and the restriction of visa regulations, marriage migration has become the most important legal possibility for immigration from Morocco to Germany. The individual right to marriage and family life, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the Charter of the EU, as well as in national constitutions, obliges EU member states to guarantee entry and residence to family members. Nonetheless, marriage migration has been a target of border control, especially since its increase in the 1970s, as this group of migrants is seen as ‘unproductive’ compared for example to labour migrants, especially those highly qualified (Block 2012, 44). So-called ‘mixed couples’ constitute an integral part of marriage migration and are at the same time subject to a special focus of control by the German as well as the Moroccan state. Although the control of marriage migration is nothing new, the introduction of the German
language certificate in 2007 has created a new level of intervention. Disguised as a measure to facilitate integration and based on an ethno-cultural distinction of society, the utilitarian logic of neoliberal migration management has even found its way into the control of marriage migration – a migration form traditionally linked to private matters. With the implementation of the language certificate in Morocco, the German language has not only been commodified and triggered the emergence of a new market, it has also become an important instrument of border control. Integration discourses that advance the idea of women’s empowerment through language
acquisition also contribute to the social (re)construction of the figure of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ who has to be protected and saved from the ‘oppressive Muslim man’ who forces a woman to marry and then stay at home (Abu-Lughod 2002). Next to legitimising the requirement of a language certificate, this discursive logic also reinforces orientalist fantasies that patriarchy
The Journal of North African Studies 549
In fact, the language certificate does not only have an excluding effect, but leads to the hierarchisation of marriage migrants: while some get excluded others get included, at least in the utilitarian logic of the migration regime. Those who already have a certain education level and do not have difficulty in affording the language courses, will have no problem in learning German and passing the exam. For them, the integration argument even holds, as they will become more qualified for the German labour market through their language skills and will have fewer difficulties in communicating in their new environment. Two young Moroccan women I interviewed even continued with the language courses up to the B1 level before their departure, enabling them to participate in the ‘Studienkolleg’ – a preparatory course for studying in Germany – and to register at the university afterwards. Consequently, the required language certificate only reinforces existing inequalities between marriage migrants in terms of education and financial means. This hierarchisation is part of a migration management system that follows neo-liberal thinking and aims first and foremost at the utilisation of migrants’ economic potential and competitiveness.
