Metropolis Conference. November 2001. Dr. Elizabeth Mestheneos. SEXTANT Group.
Bridges and Fences: Refugee
perceptions of Integration in the European Union Member States.
In 1999 143 refugees
were interviewed in all 15 EU Member States about their perceptions and
experiences of living and integrating in the various host countries. The
research was undertaken in the context of the ECRE Task Force on Integration[i] , funded by the EU, and was concerned with good practice by NGOs and local and national governments in supporting refugee integration
as one of the durable solutions. The research aimed at providing
refugees with the opportunity of recounting their experiences of and
difficulties in adapting and integrating, and the strategies they adopted, explicitly
or unconsciously, in order to live and be accepted in the new host society. The
results were illuminating for refugee policy, and the practices of NGOs and
other supporting agencies, as well as illuminating the personal survival and
dynamic integration strategies of refugees themselves. However in this
presentation I will focus on experiences of initial reception and
their implications for refugee integration..
Biographical
interpretive methods,
involving an open initial question to the refugee interviewed, followed by more
traditional semi structured questions, was the basic method used. 10 interviews
were conducted in the 15 Member States over a three month period, mainly by
trained refugee interviewers using 18 different languages - whichever was the
most comfortable and accessible to both the interviewer and interviewee.
Those interviewed had refugee status and had been living in the host society
for at least two years. Responses were affected by factors such as 1. personal characteristics and social background
e.g. personality, gender, age,
education, family, religion, culture, 2. the length of time in the Member
State, 3. the experience of initial reception as asylum seekers, and 4. the
conditions facing them in the host country.
Initial
Reception.
The
period of waiting in reception camps or facilities for the award of refugee
status was often an extended one. Though the focus of the interview was on integration in the host
society, many refugees started by talking of the initial period when they
applied for asylum and it can be assumed that what happened there influenced
their subsequent attitudes to integration and adaptation 1. Safety.
For
some refugees gratitude to the host country and the overwhelming feeling
of being safe, were emotions they still reported. The traumas of their past
lives and going into exile are still uppermost in their minds and structure
their responses. (I will be giving some quotations from refugees to illustrate
what their responses were to issues). An
educated middle aged Peruvian man says:
"
When I arrived here, I first had a feeling of security, relief, peace in
general, that permitted me to be calm in the first place, to be calm
psychologically. I am grateful for this, I must be grateful"
An Afghani professional
man describes his experiences in the Netherlands:
"Everything was new
for me and I have experienced a lot of joyful happenings. I didn't confront any
problems yet.
2. The
waste.
Many commented on
their feelings of paralysis in the camps, of being unable to get on with their
lives as they tried to recover from traumatic and painful experiences. The
paralysis was the result of their lack of rights and status during the
reception period, the length of time varying with the time period for
recognition of refugee status, but also by the policies of Member States. When
this period was a particularly negative refugee continued to talk about it long
after, since it scarred their subsequent life and integration. A young Bosnian
woman in Denmark tells of the lost years involved in seeking for asylum:
"It looks as if I
never lived between my 26th and 29th years of age. I was
26 when I came and I was 29 when I got permission to stay but it seems as if
someone gave me some sleeping pills and I slept for three years."
An
educated Sudanese man in his 30's and
living in Sweden tells the interviewer:
"In the camp we did
nothing, we only played cards and talked to each other. When we moved to the
city we were given some money to take care of ourselves and we also started learning
Swedish. After a while we lost interest because of the cold weather and the
long period we had to wait for our status recognition".
However the kindness of a Swedish refugee worker who took them on a picnic is
still remembered after several years.
The waste of time while in initial reception
centres in France is commented on by
a man from the Cameroon:
"What struck me is the
fact that during the procedure ( to get
refugee status) you are not allowed to do anything. I lived with a small
allowance and small illegal jobs. Being a painter I sold my creations to
survive".
3. Relations to host society-
The negative role of government reception
centres for asylum seekers and refugees in promoting integration was commented
on wryly by a Hutu man from Ruanda living in Austria:
"I think it is some
kind of a joke. They call them integration houses and I have never met an
Austrian inside the house except the staff. So what do they mean by
integration? Integration between ourselves? I am sorry that I did not have the
chance to learn anything about the Austrian culture during my stay in that
integration house. All I have learned is the language but nothing about the
culture, not even about the eating culture of Austrians".
The experiences of living in
a reception hostel also housing runaway British girls confound the efforts of a
young Sudanese woman to integrate;
"I went to discos but it didn't actually give
me a friendship with the people there. The people were from London, Europe, but
it was difficult because the girls who were at the hostel were girls who had
run away from their homes and they didn't have contact with their families. So
even if I went to discos I didn't come across people that I could expect to
respect me. " She still
had no real English friends..
4.
Language courses
Unless a refugee
arrives already speaking the language of the host country s/he is faced by
having to learn a new language. Refugees often speak several languages and are
highly educated,. Which influences their perceptions on the quality of initial
language tuition. A middle aged, educated Palestinian Christian woman from Syria comments:
"I am sorry to say
that the language training I received in Modling (Austria) was kind of
elementary. it could help me survive for a couple of weeks but couldn't help me
integrate myself into the society. The course, well the level was too low."
The illogical position of
governments on language instruction for asylum seekers was commented on a by Bosnian man, lucky
enough to attend the first intensive training course organised in Denmark for
Bosnians after recognition.
" I was lucky, most of the others I know and, other groups not only
ours, they have problems because they had to wait for a long time to start the
course, they are doing it very slowly, they are doing it once or twice a week
and that is a bad idea....it is not enough to do it like twice a week or
something. And that should be definitely done just after arrival. And if people
don't stay in Denmark, what is the difference? It is better that they learn
language and then leave than the opposite, not letting them learn language and
then they stay."
The consequences of
not knowing the local language can be frightening - an Angolan in Ireland who
could only speak French on arrival, says:
"I
was exposed to physical and verbal provocation from local people and couldn't
easily communicate because of language barriers."
5. Lack of information
For many refugees initial adaptation is particularly difficult when
clear and accessible information seems absent. Though every Member State has
developed information pamphlets and services, these do not always reach the
refugee or else they did not know how to access the information. An educated
Congolese man in the UK says how lucky he feels to be living there but :
"The problem is how to get access to the refugee society, you must know
what services are available for you before you ask for help. ..You have to
spend a lot of time to ask questions and sometimes you are humiliated because
many people do not like to answer when they hear you are a foreigner. Imagine
those who don't speak the language, it was very difficult for me to find out
about the services available".
These insights
from refugee perceptions are useful in terms of policies and practices for
those involved with setting up and running reception facilities. I would like
to underline some other findings from the refugee perceptions research which
need to be born in mind in relation to reception and integration..
A. Common to many was the feeling
that coming to another country means starting from the beginning again.
An educated Somali woman points out there is:
" the harsh reality. You are like a small child, starting all over
again."
However these are not children but mature adults who have
to be helped to learn in ways that are suitable for adults.
B. The shock of being in a different culture, sometimes for
the first time. This does not relate to education but to central values and the
fact of not having experienced Western cultures and society.
An educated Tunisian man
says:
"I am a Moslem and I practice it. There are
things that are very important for me to be calm. I've found many people with
different cultures and different behaviour. I am a bit shocked by this contact
even though I know that it is a rich experience to know about other cultures."
Cultural differences may
also be experienced in a positive way. An educated Iraqi Christian woman tells
us that the change of culture posed no problems to her :
"since
I didn't like the customs of my society very much".
Within Europe there are also differences
in values, styles of communication and culture - some refugees found the
individualism and stress on privacy in Northern Europe in strong negative
contrast with their own societies, that tend to place a high value on
sociability.
C. Deprivation of autonomy- The developed
European social welfare systems, excluding the Southern Member States, provide
extensive support to refugees and others excluded from the labour market, but
this contrasts strongly to the societies where refugees originate and often
makes them feel demeaned. A young married Sudanese woman whose husband is
studying at a Swedish university and receives both a scholarship and social
assistance tells us:
" In my tradition it is not
good to depend on others for living. He is a young man, he has to work, he told
me he looked everywhere unsuccessfully. After a year I discovered that all
foreigners are like that. and gradually I got used to that. I feel like it's begging. In fact it is not different from
asking people on the streets"
A Bosnian Moslem woman in
Denmark for 7 years gave details about the initial reception period living on a
boat for 17 months and waiting for refugee status:
" All that time I had the feeling that the Red Cross fed me, and that
made me feel bad. I felt like I was a beggar and I thought I have to find out
some way to earn money. In a way I forgot about my education from my country,
even though I had good education but I did not have any kind of prejudice I
tried to find any job just because I did not want to get money from the Red
Cross".
Bureaucratic
procedures and inflexibility, over generosity and enforced dependency act to
inhibit initiatives by refugees to become independent.
D. Loss of social status- the
disproportionate representation of refugees from well educated middle and upper
backgrounds, particularly in some Member States, affects refugees' expectations
of integration. However many are effectively expected to start from the bottom again
and some to not adjust to their loss of social status. A university trained
Albanian young woman, talked about confronting
the pressures of being Albanian in Italy:
"I don't want to deny that during those first days we were treated very
well. Humanity is -the best word... .. I don't want to think I am a foreigner,
refugee, all the names they give to foreigners here in Italy. I don't have to
think I am this and I am not worth anything. I put myself on the same level as
the Italians. I have to struggle, I have to find my way, I have to find what I
was once."
Economic dominance, residual colonial attitudes and refugee dependency
can bedevil the attitudes of many people in the host society,.
Initial reception is the critical point where the right kind of support
and help will help ensure successful integration for refugees.
