BELGIUM: NGOs in Brussels say governments hiding real cost of immigrant detention centres and humane alternatives are needed

Record ID: 274556

  • Title: BELGIUM: NGOs in Brussels say governments hiding real cost of immigrant detention centres and humane alternatives are needed
  • Date: 20th June 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) JAN STUYT, EUROPE REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF JESUIT REFUGEE SERVICE, SAYING: "It is a political, er, very convenient to be harsh on migration and to say loud that you want to keep people out. That brings you the votes and very strict detention in the sense of deterrence works to get votes nowadays in Europe."
  • Embargoed: 5th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9TBVQL55YY9P6Q7LCYFS3SXF7
  • Story Text: Detention centres for asylum seekers are costing tax payers more than their average salary, failing immigrants as well as European nationals, several organisations warned on Monday (June 19.)
    Speaking in Brussels on the eve of World Refugee Day, Professor Anton van Kalmthout of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture said the cost of detention centres was extremely high, but that governments were reluctant to reveal the real costs.
    "For example in Italy the monthly average income is less than 2,000 euros, to detain one person for one month is more than 2,500 euros and take into account that they lock up in Italy more than 70,000 a year and then during many months, you can imagine that it costs millions and millions of euros to detain people," van Kalmthout said.
    His estimates do not include the cost of building the centres, policing, medical costs and related re-patriation costs when they apply. He therefore believes the real cost could be double his estimate.
    He also said governments were not interested in gathering and publishing the details of those costs because they wanted to "maintain the illusion that the way they deal with migrants is successful".
    The regional director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Jan Stuyt, said being hard on immigrants was always a vote winner in Europe. Telling European tax payers in Italy, Spain and Poland for example that detention centres were a costly failure could lose them elections.
    "It is a political very convenient to be harsh on migration and to say loud that you want to keep people out. That brings you the votes and very strict detention in the sense of deterrence works to get votes nowadays in Europe," Stuyt said.
    He said the European Commission was keen to find out the real cost of detention and reception centres and had asked NGOs to help. Stuyt said the problem was getting hold of the information from governments unwilling to give it.
    Two refugees spoke about their own experiences - neither wanted to be filmed for fear of repatriation.
    One, Mr T, came from East Africa after paying 2,000 US dollars for a trafficker to take him on a boat from Libya to Italy. He ended up in Malta instead where he was put in a detention centre.
    He said conditions in the centre were harsh, and he sometimes had to share his room, a 4 metres by 3 metres cubicle, with up to 20 people.
    He said it took 9 months before he was interviewed by immigration officials assessing his status.
    He now has 'humanitarian status' which could be revoked as soon as the troubles in his home country end.
    Another asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, Mr B, said he left home because rebels tried to force him to join them. He said they killed his wife in front of his eyes after he refused to join them. He then fled hoping to reach the United States.
    He was stopped when immigration officials at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam questioned and detained him. He stayed there for 3 years.
    He had left the centre temporarily when it caught fire last October killing 11 people and injuring 15. He said several people went on hunger strike after the fire.
    "Hunger strike because of fear of another fire outbreak. They were afraid again for a new prison again, because they no longer trust the workers that are working there. The hunger strike was carried out because they don't want to see the same workers that was working with them in Schiphol in that same place again," Mr B said.
    In a written statement European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini said on the eve of World Refugee Day that people should learn lessons from "those who have faced persecution, torture and serious abuses of their human rights" and that "the integration of refugees into our society is therefore one of the most important and enriching tasks we face and one from which Europe can only benefit".
    But van Kalmhout said no European immigration policy should be separated from policies of development - helping countries ravaged by poverty, wars and natural disasters so that people no longer feel the need to flee.
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