Vulnerable asylum seekers include families with children under the age of 1, unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers who need immediate medical treatment.
Non-vulnerable refugees who are now staying in emergency shelters must have a decent roof over their heads in nine months at the latest, the judge has also ruled.
With immediate effect, the COA (Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers) must provide access to drinking water and good health care for all refugees in emergency shelters, the judge ruled. In three quarters of the year at the latest, refugees must have housing of at least four square meters per person, with four walls, a ceiling, lockable door and good sanitary facilities, as required by EU rules. The refugees must receive a financial allowance to which they are entitled within four weeks. And a safe play area should be created for children.
According to the Council for Refugees, the situation in many asylum reception locations is ‘unsustainable’. “In one year we went from 0 to 72 emergency shelter locations and an unknown number of crisis emergency shelters,” said the lawyer for Vluchtelingenwerk during the hearing in September.
At the hearing, the COA indicated that there were 12,400 refugees in emergency shelters and 5,750 in crisis shelters at that time. According to UNICEF, more than 3,000 children are staying in emergency shelters. “We have also become accustomed this year to images of asylum seekers sleeping in the open air and we have reached the low point that MSF has been active on its own soil for the first time,” said the Council for Refugees. The organization wanted the judge to intervene and demanded that the reception meets the minimum requirements in the short term.
The state lawyer acknowledges that the level of reception is substandard. “Sometimes much lower than we were used to and wish the State and COA.” She said there is no short-term solution, but it can be achieved “only step by step.”