Sikhism in Belgium - Migration To Belgium

Migration To Belgium

The first eight Sikhs who came to Belgium as private citizens arrived on 8 November 1972 as political exiles. They were expelled from Uganda; at the time, it was under the dictatorial rule of Idi Amin, who drove all Indians from the country. Other Sikhs who arrived before 1985 (only a handful, among them Jarnail Singh Alhuwalia) were workers at the Indian Embassy. Most Sikhs arrived in the wake of Sukhdev Singh Jalwehra in 1985, after the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by Indian troops the previous year. When Jalwehra arrived in Belgium, a ban existed on the wearing of turbans in passport or identity-card photos. Jalwehra fought the case and won, and Sikhs were no longer required to remove their turbans. In 1993, when King Baudouin I died, Sukhdev Singh Jalwerha paid their respects at the palace with a group of other Sikhs as representatives of the Belgian Sikh community.

The first Sikhs in Belgium were predominantly male laborers with limited education, sharing a rented house and dividing the costs. Since they were accustomed to working in agriculture, they looked for work in that sector and found seasonal jobs in the Flemish province of Limburg on fruit farms. Later Sikhs immigrated for economic reasons; they had been living in impoverished regions of the Punjab and came looking for a better life in Belgium. At first they also found employment on fruit farms but when they could afford to do so they established their own shops, particularly shops remaining open at night in Brussels. As immigrants, completing the necessary paperwork was challenging. Sikh women are now arriving in Belgium in greater numbers, many to reunite their families.