Quotations of professionals

Length of asylum procedures

Muslim woman holding a clock.

There are cases that are more complicated and require more investigation and then there are some cases that are easier. What I note is that there are major differences between different nationalities. This is first and foremost what the statistics show. Asylum applicants who come from countries where there usually are no needs for protection often have a relatively quick process. […] And the process is also relatively short for groups who in most cases are granted protection. Syrians for example also have a shorter process than Afghans or Somalis, so there are probably significant differences between different nationalities.
(Asylum authority expert, national level, Sweden)

Family reunification

Silhouettes of refugee family - mother, father and two children.

What obviously has changed – that was [the 2016 amendment] – that you can only submit the application within three months after recognition of asylum […]. Obviously that does have an impact, because people have an immense amount of stress.
(Lawyer, Austria)

Housing

One hand holds a key out to an open palm.

A CADA is more ideal and moreover it shows in the results. People who are supported in a CADA have a level of access to protection that is much better than those who are not supported or supervised, and who do not have, how would you say it, all the advantages that those who are in a CADA can have, it goes without saying.
(Local housing authority expert, France)

Social welfare for status holders

A pile of coins held within a hand.

The child who had lost a leg was a minor. As long as he was in hospital there was no way for him to get a residence permit […]. The hospital could not give him a declaration of hospitality […] and to this day he still doesn’t have a disability allowance, and without that you can’t get a prosthesis other than by paying for it […]. From a legal point of view there was no way out.
(NGO legal assistant, Italy)

Mental health

A young woman sits on a floor with her head down and her knees up against her chest.

Sleep disorders – the main topic here – nightmares, screaming at night. Everything is simply too tightly packed, there are simply too many people in one room, where others have nightmares at night too, and for people with sleep disorders it’s a huge problem to be in bunk beds and other people who live so close.
(NGO psychologist, Austria)

Education for children

School children standing in a line reading books.

We’ve seen this very clearly. The pupils who stay in the first accommodation centres [for unaccompanied children] with the same experienced staff, they entered the education system in the right way. They were really taken care of in a completely different way. The rest, those who arrived later, were left to themselves and this was extremely clearly reflected in their school results and attendance […] One of the most important success factors to counteract school drop-outs that we have found is ensuring that the transfers are monitored, and pupils followed up when they have been moved. It’s always a sensitive phase. And we can see that the municipalities appear to have forgotten to look after the pupils’ transfers, have forgotten how important it is to do follow-ups on asylum-seeking pupils in upper secondary schools.
(Education authority expert, Sweden)

Adult education and vocational training

Three young women working together on laptops.

[Residence permits for asylum seekers or protection holders] exist, it’s true, but it’s not the majority, so sometimes it happens that you come across them for the first time, and you have to be able to recognise them; sometimes they [employers] ask you: ‘Is this OK to work? It’s not written here! It doesn’t say residence permit for work reasons, he can’t work!’ We can’t assume that everyone is aware of the rights connected to the different types of residence permits. Because actually everybody knows that there are some residence permits which don’t allow you to work and hence they are reluctant to employ these people.
(Employment service expert, Milan)

Vulnerability to crime

An eye with the reflection of a raised hand showing in the middle.

One should not make not make hasty conclusions. […] It’s not because one is poor that one will commit a crime … A lot of people find themselves in precarious situations, with no access to housing, etc., and will not commit crime. But the contrary also exists, with no jobs and no access to housing, one can speculate that such a person will more easily steal than someone that has a job and a place to live. It seems to be coherent, logic. But nothing is a given, one should not make any type of determinism that this would push you into committing infractions.
(Law enforcement expert, France)