Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, April 14, 2008

In Denmark, asylum seekers spend up to a decade in the wilderness while their cases are heard

Asylum seekers in Denmark have no national registration or social security number. That means they are only allowed emergency medical help if the asylum camp doctors give the OK.

Dental help, pills and so on must often be paid out of the asylum seekers’ subsistence allowance from the government, which may be as little as 600 kroner ($120) every two weeks per person and is primarily used for food.

This situation can on for weeks, months - or even up to 10 years - before their applications to stay in Denmark and any appeals are finalised.

These were among the complaints that a delegation of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) looked into during a recent inspection of two asylum camps and a prison where deportees are held before they are accompanied out of the country.

The MEPs’ report is due in October, but initial comments from members of the delegation castigate the Danish government for its policies and the long and drawn out procedures. Asylum seekers are persona non grata even before they arrive…

On Friday April 11, a delegation from the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (KIBE) arrived to inspect the Sandholm and Kongelunden refugee camps in Denmark. This follows an invitation made in 2006 by NGOs including SOS Against Racism DK, the Documentary and Advisory Centre on Racial Discrimination and the People’s Movement for Humane Asylum Policy.

The NGOs believe Denmark’s asylum practices fail to live up to the international conventions that Denmark has signed about the conditions for children, educational obligations, health conditions and similar matters. The NGOs are concerned about the fact that the majority of asylum seekers live for many years in asylum centres, not knowing how their future will be. Rejected asylum seekers who do not want to return voluntarily, because of war or civil war in their country of birth, are being put under severe pressure, making their hopeless situation even more unbearable.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to take paid work, and they live on very limited space for years, some even up to 10 years. The Danish government has tightened immigration and asylum policy in the past seven years. This has resulted in an increase in the number deportations, cut backs in the Refugee Board, shorter time-limits for filing complaints and leaving the country, increased “motivational initiatives” in order to make rejected refugees leave, and stricter demands for the obtaining of Danish citizenship. Bringing down the number of asylum seekers and residence permits has been one of the current Danish Government’s main aims. A method to reach this aim has been to cut down the number of spontaneous asylum seekers…