On World Refugee Day, IOM describes ‘trivialisation’ of refugee status
The head of the Portuguese office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned today that the lack of legal entry channels for migrants is putting pressure on the number of asylum applications in Europe.
“In Portugal, what we have been seeing, and even a little throughout Europe, is the use of this mechanism (of refugee status) – which should be considered exceptional – as a mechanism for legalisation” said Vasco Malta, in an interview with Lusa.
Speaking on the occasion of World Refugee Day, which is being celebrated today, Vasco Malta admits that the “mass use of this type of procedure can overshadow those who really need, from the point of view of the risk to their lives in their country of origin, to ask for international protection“.
This happens because there are no “safe channels that effectively allow people who do not qualify as asylum seekers to legally, safely and orderly seek” a new life as an economic migrant.
“The lack of these legal and safe channels is what makes many of these people feel compelled to use this international protection mechanism,” which can lead to refugee status being trivialised or to excessive rigour on the part of national authorities.
Refugee status implies “people who have been forced to flee their homes due to conflicts, persecution or disasters”, Malta explained – “so we need to ensure that they can be filtered out” of the wider pressure of people trying to become legalised.
“The trivialisation (of applications for asylum status) is due to the lack of other mechanisms that allow migrants to be legally and properly settled,” he repeated.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, around 117 million people are forcibly displaced from their countries.
In the case of Portugal, the “IOM has been establishing collaboration protocols with the Portuguese State since 2018” and since then “has managed, in a humane and dignified way, to help bring 1,297 people to Portugal, who have sought refuge in our country and who have had a chance to restart their life project”.
This number is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of migrants that have seen Portugal’s resident population increase to beyond 10.6 million for the first time in living memory, very possibly (as Expresso has suggested) ‘ever’.
The IOM identified the 1,297 refugees, processed their cases and provided them with prior medical examinations.
The organisation, explained Vasco Malta, “meets with these people for a few days, explains to them what the culture in Portugal is like, what they’re going to find, what city they’re going to live in and, therefore, bridges the gap between what these people’s reality was before they arrived in Portugal.
“It’s important to emphasise that the asylum process is always an individual process,” because “no one is born a refugee” and it is necessary to analyse each case in the light of the Geneva Convention and international protection mechanisms.
“The asylum seeker rules serve, first and foremost, to protect people who are legitimately fleeing persecution,” and this is a mechanism that should be considered exceptional, Vasco Malta concluded.
These statements come on a day that PS Socialists have announced that they will be filing a request for parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s Migration Action Plan, to ensure a ‘transitional regime’ for all migrants whose applications for legalisation have been thrown in to disarray (see story to come).
Source: LUSA
