Asylum Reforms, Discrimination of Refugees with Special Needs and Practices of Resistance in Local Contexts of Europe

Abstract

The standardization of the asylum system demonstrated a gap in providing specific assistance to asylum seekers with specific vulnerabilities as required in the Art. 17 of the 2013/33/EU Directive. The aim of this proposal is to describe the results of the research "Provide", founded by the EU (Rights, Equality and Citizenship Program 2014-2020), conducted in the last two years . The reasearch, based on mixed methods, highlights a problem of legislative discomfort between the EU and the different States; a gap in the assistance of migrants with specific needs; a problem of lack of understanding of phenomenon of proximity violence. In France, it is highlighted a lack of porosity between the Common Law and the asylum Law, especially regarding the granting of protection to vulnerable categories. Similarly, in Spain, violence suffered by migrants after leaving the origin country is not considered as a motive for International and national protection. In Italy there was a disparity in approaches in the assistance of migrants with specific needs. In the different regions and municipalities of three Countries involved there is no formalized coordinated system between asylum law and common law, between the asylum seekers’ reception system and the system of protection of victims of violence. Furthemore, asylum reforms currently underway risk of increasing the vulnerabilities related to the perpetuation of proximity violence among migrants. This is due to some of the measures envisaged by legislative reforms relating to asylum, including those concerning shorter waiting times for asylum applications and longer periods of administrative detention. The effect could be to make the victims of proximity violence even more invisible. Few are the practices of resistance in local contexts.