Khadija Arib (; ar, خديجة عريب; born 10 October 1960) is a Moroccan-Dutch politician of the Labour Party, who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands from 12 December 2015 to 7 April 2021. In the 2016 Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives election on 13 January, she was elected to the position, which she had served as Acting Speaker since the resignation of

Anouchka van Miltenburg Anouchka van Miltenburg (born 20 April 1967) is a retired Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). She was the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 25 September 2012 until 12 December 2015 and served as a ...

on 12 December 2015. Arib became a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

following the

1998 Dutch general election General elections were held in the Netherlands on 6 May 1998.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1396 , they mark the last time a government headed by the Labour Party (PvdA) has been elected, or tha ...

and served until 2022, with a brief interruption between 2006 and 2007.

Early life

Khadija Arib was born on 10 October 1960 in Hedami near

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

.Drs. K. (Khadija) Arib
(in Dutch), ''Parlment & Politiek''. Retrieved 19 October 2017. She came to the Netherlands when she was 15 years old. Her parents worked at a laundry service in

Schiedam Schiedam () is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands. It is located in the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen, and south of Delft. In the south the city is connected with the villa ...

. Arib studied

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

. Before her political career, she was a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

, educator and

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

er.

Politics

Arib is a member of the Labour Party (', PvdA) and a member of Parliament from 19 May 1998 to 29 November 2006 and since 1 March 2007. In the House, she focussed on matters of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of Racial discrimination, r ...

abuse Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...

domestic violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partn ...

, and

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Yo ...

care. She has been criticised (mainly by members of the

Party for Freedom The Party for Freedom ( nl, Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) is a nationalist, right-wing populist political party in the Netherlands. Founded in 2006 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man faction in the House of Representatives, it won nin ...

) for her dual citizenship and for her part in an advisory committee to the

King of Morocco This is the list of rulers of Morocco, since the establishment of the state in 789. The common and formal titles of these rulers has varied, depending on the time period. Since 1957, the designation King has been used. The present King of Mor ...

. In 2012, she made an unsuccessful attempt to become speaker and became first deputy speaker instead. She was elected speaker in an interim election on 13 January 2016, defeating three other candidates. On 29 March 2017 Arib was re-elected as speaker,;she was the only candidate for the position. Following the

2017 Dutch general election General elections were held in the Netherlands on Wednesday 15 March 2017 to elect all 150 members of the House of Representatives. The incumbent government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the first to serve a full term since 2002. The pre ...

, Arib chose

Edith Schippers Edith Ingeborg Schippers (born 25 August 1964) is a retired Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and businesswoman serving as President of the DSM Company since 1 February 2019. Schippers, a political consulta ...

as ''informateur'', whose role is to explore possible governing alliances. Following Schippers' resignation, she named Herman Tjeenk Willink and Gerrit Zalm for the position. After the 2021 Dutch general election, Arib lost her position as speaker. She became a member of the opposition and was part of the PvdA fraction. After anonymous allegations of misconduct at the end of September 2021, Arib left the parliament on 3 November 2022.

Political positions

During her career, Arib has been a champion for women's rights and the empowerment of women with a migrant background in the Netherlands; she was a founding member and president of the Moroccan Women in the Netherlands Foundation. In 1989, she was held prisoner in Morocco with her 3 children, after publicly addressing issues concerning the position of women in Moroccan society. After intervention by the

Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( nl, link=no, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken; BZ) is the Ministries of the Netherlands, Netherlands' ministry responsible for foreign relations of the Netherlands, foreign relations, foreign policy, internation ...

, she was allowed to return to the Netherlands.

Electoral history

Bibliography

* 1992: ''Marokkaanse vrouwen in Nederland'' (Moroccan women in the Netherlands) with Essa Reijmers * 2009: ''Couscous op zondag'' (Couscous on Sundays) * 2011: ''Allah heeft ons zo gemaakt'' (Allah made us like this)

References

External links

Khadija Arib
(in Dutch) at the House of Representatives website
Khadija Arib
(in Dutch) at the Labour Party website {{DEFAULTSORT:Arib, Khadija 1960 births Living people 20th-century Dutch civil servants 20th-century Dutch educators 20th-century Dutch non-fiction writers 20th-century Dutch politicians 20th-century Dutch women politicians 20th-century Dutch women writers 21st-century Dutch non-fiction writers 21st-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch women politicians 21st-century Dutch women writers Dutch social workers Dutch sociologists Labour Party (Netherlands) politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Moroccan emigrants to the Netherlands People from Casablanca-Settat Speakers of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) University of Amsterdam alumni Women legislative speakers Dutch women sociologists