Dr Esther van Eijk, LLM
I am a researcher & consultant* based in Leiden, the Netherlands. My work focuses on access to justice, especially in the context of migration.
As a research consultant I provide the following services:
- Expertise in (religious) family law, civil documentation, the Middle East (Syria & Iraq), Islamic law, missing persons, undocumented migrants, human rights;
- Legal analysis and research, including empirical socio-legal research (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods);
- Legal advice upon request by, most importantly, lawyers, public sector/government organisations, NGOs working on migrant and refugee issues;
- Presentations, courses and trainings.
Main clients:
- Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
- International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)
- Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Dutch Association of Family Lawyers and Divorce Mediators
- Tolk- en Vertaalbureau MONA (trainings for professional interpreters and translators)
Background
Before finishing my PhD on Syrian family law at Leiden University, I have completed degrees in International Law and Arabic (Leiden University), specialising in human rights, refugee & gender issues, and Islamic family law. During and after my studies, I also looked in detail at the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) and worked for a Palestinian NGO in the field of human rights and rights of women.
After my PhD, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University, where my socio-legal research focused on religious marriage and divorce practices in a transnational context, and women’s rights issues in the Netherlands, including marital captivity and forced marriages.
I am the author of Family Law in Syria: Patriarchy, Pluralism and Personal Status Laws (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016). This study is based on extensive, ethnographic fieldwork in Damascus (Syria), consisting of interviews and court observations in three (Muslim, Catholic and Greek-Orthodox) personal status courts. My work has also appeared in edited volumes and international journals, including Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in the Past and Present (2010), Family Law in Islam: Divorce, Marriage and Women in the Muslim World (2012), Electronic Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (2014), Islamic Law and Society (2018), and Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures (2019).
* Registered company name: Van Eijk Research & Consultancy