This is not an experience, it is suffering [...] a struggle because you need to wait between 30 and 40 days to register, they give you a number and this number needs to be shown on the screen. The screen works every day from 8.00 until 18.00. I remained 35 days like this [...] waiting for the number to show up. (Refugee from Syria, male, Germany)
Every time, if we wanted to do the residence permit, it goes on for a long time because they ask for a lot of paperwork and there is always something still missing. In fact, I was, I do not know, I was a little shocked because they do not ask you for everything at the same time, every time you have to go, and they ask you for something else. (Refugee from Syria, female, France)
It was really very very difficult. So, everyone ... in fact people were fighting for a place. So, for example, when there are 200 people, they only take 40 [a day], 20-odd or 40-odd. So you had to be in the first 40 or the first 20. You had to come […] four days or six days before the day of the appointment. (Asylum applicant from Somalia, male, France)
A young Syrian beneficiary of subsidiary protection in Germany recalls that his parents: "went to Lebanon from Syria. It [the journey] journey] was a torture for them [...]. They finally reached the embassy but turned back to Syria with big disappointment because the child is 18 years old now. [...] [Travelling] to Turkey was extremely dangerous [...] they travelled while Idlib was under intensive bombing, they stayed 11 days there [at the border, not being able to enter Turkey]. I suffered a lot during those 10 days. They tried to cross borders but they could not until we paid smugglers [...] to transfer the family from Idlib to Turkey, two months ago [...] the costs were high but more importantly the journey was not safe [...] (Subsidiary protection status holder from Syria, male, Germany)
I will be psychologically calm, I will have no anxiety that my parents are in Syria and something can happen to them, because the situation over there and around them is very difficult [...]. There is a slight chance that I will be able to integrate. (Refugee from Syria, male, Greece)
Family, always. No matter if you have found a job, if you're well settled in France, if you have friends and all that ... (Refugee from Eritrea, male, France)
I never asked for information about the procedure, I wouldn't know where to go, where to ask. (Subsidiary protection status holder from Somalia, male, Italy)
When I arrived in Traiskirchen, I think also 200 others came. Back then I only spoke my mother tongue and didn't understand German or English. There were only a few Somali translators there. And in the first night, they took all the children and women, quickly and suddenly all the women were gone and I was alone with the men. That night there were only men, and all the women were gone, and I didn't have anyone who helped me speak in Somali. I didn't find anyone and I couldn't ask what was going on. Maybe they said my last name but I didn't hear it and then I slept outside. And then I found a man who spoke Somali and English and then he went to the office with me and said: 'it's a girl and she is 14 years old and she doesn't have space. (Subsidiary protection status holder from Somalia, female, Austria)
On 28 September 2016, I went to the prefecture, I gave my fingerprints, I was given an asylum seeker's certificate, and during all that time I continued to live on the streets, because there was no accomodation [...]. I also called 115 but they told me that: 'No, we do not take lone boys, we take families, pregnant women, women with children; so if you're alone, there really is no place for you.' So I had no choice, I continued to sleep outdoors, in the underground, here and there. And it was in 2017, in August, that I had this place in the CADA here. (Refugee from Democratic Republic of the Congo, male, France)
A: I've been looking for a house on my own for a year and I still haven't found anything, I'm still looking Q: Why haven't you found one? A: I think it's because I don't have a long-term contract, so maybe ... Q: Only that? A: Let's say it's also because I'm a but coloured Q: Tell me, when you look for a house, what are landlords' reactions? A: Landlords, when you call them, they say somebody's already taken the house, they ask you where you're from, what job you do and then when you tell them you're African they say 'ah somebody's already taken the house, I'm sorry' ... Even where I am now we don't have a regular house rental agreement. (Refugee from The Gambia, male, Italy)
I already applied for social housing, but there they told me that it takes a long time to get something, and I also made requests for a young worker's home, but up to now I have had no response. (Refugee from Democratic Republic of the Congo, male, France)
You can see yourselves the situation here, how it is. It is better that I don't stay here, I want to leave ... there is no school, I cannot work either, it is far from everything. We just eat, drink and sleep. (Refugee from Eritrea, male, France)
When I was under the age of 18, I had more opportunities, I mean it wasn’t an issue. They usually took care of everything. But when I turned 18, it was a lot harder. You just received money for food, nothing else. There were more problems, and I didn’t get any information about how to apply for financial permits or anything else. When you’re under 18 years you have the chance to ... besides food, you can buy clothes and some other stuff. But when you turn 18, it’s a lot harder, it’s just food. If you don’t have a residence permit, you can’t even work, so it’s just money for food. This money you get for food, it’s just money for surviving. (Asylum applicant from Afghanistan, male, Sweden)
People who are over 25 years old, they have the RSA and they ask for housing immediately. And for me there is no RSA, so it's very, very difficult. (Refugee from Afghanistan, male, France)
Each month they [the reception centre's staff] pay me € 240, I buy food, anything I want to buy I buy with that money [...]. We have to buy ourselves [cleaning products], you cook with that money, you buy things, soap, every month. (Humanitarian protection status holder from The Gambia, male, Italy)
For example, I had to go to Stockholm twice by myself and apply for a Syrian passport, and I got it, but I had to pay like SEK 5,000 € 487) for it. So that felt really unnecessary, and I didn't get any extra financial support to cover the costs. And yes, it has been many things like that, the driving licence ... If I hadn't worked during 2017, I wouldn't have managed all that. (Humanitarian protection status holder from The Gambia, male, Italy)
What was a little difficult is that you have to start all over again. They ask you in several different places about your situation, your real problem [...] and that gets to you. It gets to you very badly. Because everything you've experienced and all the stuff that ... the misery you've had or ... there are things you do not want to talk about, and they'll ask you all that again. (Refugee from Guinea who arrived as an unaccompanied child, male, France)
The hardest thing was waiting. For sure, the waiting was very difficult, if I speak for myself personally, it threw me into a whirlwind where I could neither eat nor drink, I was just waiting. (Asylum applicant from Sudan, male, France)
I'm alone there. There is nobody. There is just me. (Unaccompanied child, male, France)
My life is hell. I feel that I am in a prison, and I don't know when they will let me go. My family left, I'm left alone. Since my family left, when I communicate with them I get very sad and feel alone. Loneliness. At night I can't sleep, I can't fall asleep. There are doctors and I go to them for insomnia, lack of appetite. They give me pills for all that, so that I can sleep and get my appetite back. (Asylum applicant from Afghanistan, male, Greece)
I knew no one, I had no German friends nor Syrians, [...] so I wasn't feeling well psychologically [...] I felt lonely [...] yes, I was going to the library and getting Arabic books [...] Sometimes, I stopped eating for days, I just had no appetite. I was doing groceries, cleaning the house, going out [...] despite all of this, I was feeling lonely, I don't know, I felt it was really difficult. [...] I came here; I went out from a jail to another jail. I was expecting that I would start school quickly, get friends, and be smiling. This all turned out the opposite, I had no friends, I had no school, and I was always home [...]. All things accumulated and pressured me, it was really difficult, I attempted suicide [...]. (Subsidiary protection status holder from Syria, female, Germany)
I know a lot of people here who did the same thing as me, who returned to a class two or three years lower, who were forced to redo all the years of high school. They were forced to do the year of MoDAc [i.e. preparatory classes in Marseilles] and I have a friend who was in 'Terminale' [final year] in the country of origin, [...] and [in France] he had to redo, from second [year]. (Refugee accompanied child from Syria, male, France)
They [the school] were trying to direct us towards one direction, vocational training. I did not like this because they trapped us in specific fields in vocational training, in handicrafts, blacksmith, carpenter, painter [...] I was doing my high school in Syria, I wanted to continue university and now I downgraded to vocational training and said 'let's do salesman', and they [the school] wanted me to do carpenter and blacksmith. (Refugee from Syria, male, Germany)
At [the secondary school], the students did not treat us with respect, not all of them, I can't generalise, there is good and bad [...] you can say they tend to be racist towards us; as an example, once we were playing basketball, then a female German student attacked us and said 'go and play in your home country' [...] even the teacher did not react, just distanced [the girl] away from us, even teachers are kind of [racist].(Subsidiary protection status holder from Syria, female, Germany)
[When I registered with the school they] gave me this appointment, and I told the school director straight away that I didn't like this course, that I didn't want to become a bricklayer, then I came here and I spoke with Martina [the reception facility coordinator] and she explained to me that even if I did this course I wasn't obliged to pursue it as a career and become a bricklayer. And so I went and did the courses at the Umanitaria and [...] at the Muraria school ... Unfortunately, [...] I did these courses but in the end nothing, [opportunities for] working as a baker were blocked, as a pizza maker blocked, construction wasn't my choice, so I didn't even try. (Humanitarian protection status holder from Mali, male, Italy)
I wanted to continue studying, but now I cannot. Because for a start, if I study, who will feed me?.(Refugee from Mali, female, France)
I have this friend. We used to live together in [a reception centre for unaccompanied children in Milan]. He turned 18 and he didn't have anything. He wanted to eat, he wasn't working ... If somebody says to you 'I'll give you money, come here and do this' it's easy, and it's what you need. He worked with them and then the police stopped him and now he's in prison for drug dealing. My teacher told me to be careful with these people and I didn't know this before, I didn't know there were these people who give you money, you deal drugs and then it's impossible to leave that [world]. (Subsidiary protection status holder from Somalia, male, Italy)
In the meantime one night, because I was sleeping in the park, I was attacked and they wanted to rape me. The very next morning I went to the psychologist who had told me to go to her if anything happens to me. She told me that we will find a place and that I should not go back to the park. (Refugee from Democratic Republic of the Congo, female, Greece)
[W]hen you work illegally, well, they take advantage [of you]. Sometimes you are not paid, sometimes you are poorly paid, sometimes you are ill-treated ... (Refugee from Syria, female, France)
Here [in the city], there are many youths [...] who sell drugs. I cannot imagine that they create the drugs themselves. They are simply exploited.(Subsidiary protection status holder from Syria, male, Austria)