NINE YEARS on since irregular immigrants of mainly sub-Saharan origin started arriving in boats from Libya, Malta seems to have remained stuck in its crisis response approach.
Since 2002, around 15,000 have arrived in Malta. Almost all, 98 per cent, applied for asylum from which the majority has been granted some form of protection. An estimated 5,000, including this year’s 1,500 new arrivals, remain on the island.
Asylum seekers in Malta face numerous challenges on a daily basis:
Detention
Unlike Cyprus, a policy of mandatory detention applies to all irregular arrivals. Transfer to an open centre takes place once some form of protection is granted or after a 12-month period, whichever comes first.
Persons receiving their final rejection before 12 months are detained for up to 18 months. Vulnerable groups – such as families, disabled persons and proven minors – are transferred as soon after arrival as possible.
Absence of integration policies
No government integration department exists in Malta. In 2007, the Organisation for the Integration and Welfare of Asylum Seekers was established. In 2009 however the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers took over operations, notably dropping ‘integration’ from its title.
The Agency exclusively assists persons who are officially residing at an open centre and thereby registered in the allowance system. This is regardless of whether the person is an asylum seeker, rejected asylum seeker, a person under temporary humanitarian or subsidiary protection or a refugee (herein ‘asylum seekers’).
Open centres
Open centres are intended to act merely as a short-term transition between detention and life in the community. The capacity of open centres is about 2,500 places. Most places cater for adult males as opposed to families and single women since Malta was simply responding to previous influxes. This shortcoming has recently become painfully clear.
Arrivals to Malta drastically declined during 2009, which saw a near 50 per cent drop from the previous year. In 2010, less than 50 persons arrived. Considering this decline, it is remarkable that the open centres struggle to cope with the intake of 2011 arrivals.
Some of the first 2011 arrivals to be released from detention are families who have mainly been allocated either to tents inside the dilapidated old aircraft hangar at the Hangar Complex open centre or to containers at the Tent Village open centre. Each of these centres already house around 400 predominately adult males.
Hangar Complex open centre
Children in the hangar, most are under the age of four, enjoy playing on the fuel-dusty floor. This seems to be making them sick. Ambulances would be called for the children, sometimes on a nightly basis, for symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhoea alongside colds and coughs. On arrival to hospital however symptoms would generally subside, perhaps simply as a consequence of escaping the air inside the hangar. The incessant late night ambulance run has somewhat stalled recently as the parents find themselves unable to afford the €20-€25 taxi return fare from the hospital.
Low water supplies at the Hangar Complex open centre in recent months mean that men regularly shower at a nearby open centre while children are washed with bottled water in the tents. The water shortage also means that cleaning is stalled as it takes up to 30 minutes to fill one bucket. This encourages the presence of rats that chew their way into tents and are generally a common sight throughout the centre.
Tent Village open centre
Ensuring residents’ security in large open centres remains challenging. Within a few weeks of being transferred from detention to a container at the Tent Village open centre, five single mothers were traumatised by seeing their container’s door being forced open by a masked man in the middle of the night. Luckily, on this occasion, the mothers’ screams scared him away.
Following a visit last March, Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg recommended closure of the Tent Village open centre, deeming its conditions to be “clearly inadequate even for short periods of time”.
Allowance tied to residence in open centre
Asylum seekers must attend three weekly registrations at the allocated open centre in order to receive a monthly allowance of approximately €130. If registration is missed for three weeks in a row, a place at the open centre and the monthly allowance are lost.
Once you are out of the system, re-entering is not generally an option. Currently, persons suffering from medical conditions who do not have a real prospect of employment are being given termination notices to create places for the new releases as well as the relentless return of asylum seekers from other EU Member States under the Dublin II Regulation.
Discrimination
In its March 2011 report, the European Network Against Racism suggests that racial discrimination remains widespread in Malta and that the local media promotes racism. This was illustrated recently by a uniformed policeman who told two African passersby to “go back to Africa, you don’t belong here”. The policeman was surprised to realise that he had targeted visiting Jesuit priests, not asylum seekers, which may be the only reason why it made the headlines.
Another illustration is the story of a number of women who were fired from their hotel jobs last month. Their transgression was that they had been forced to miss work one day as a consequence of the bus service cancelling its link to their open centre locality.
To test this for myself I went to a restaurant in the capital to ask if their dishwasher vacancy had been filled. The owner told me, with a smile on his face, that the vacancy was still open. An asylum seeker I was assisting had been told the opposite a few hours in advance.
It is clear that life for asylum seekers living in the community, and thus outside the allowance system, is particularly challenging. No unemployment assistance is available for the vast majority, not even for those who have subsidiary protection. Most employment is temporary and it is not uncommon to hear cases of asylum seekers being under-paid or not being paid at all by their employer.
‘They don’t want to stay in Malta’
Most asylum seekers in Malta have no prospect of gaining citizenship for themselves or their children and are without the possibility to reunite with the family they left behind.
Being met by police and taken straight to detention upon arrival in Malta after which they are faced with life in open centres and discrimination in the community is challenging.
Other EU Member States seem to conveniently close their eyes to the situation in Malta since the island practically functions as a border guard to the Union. This reality seems to be irreconcilable with the image that Europe projects to developing countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa.
Perhaps this clarifies the ever resounding exclamation of the Maltese that asylum seekers ‘do not want to stay in Malta’. It seems challenging to accept as their final destination a place in which they remain without any real prospect of integrating and creating a decent life for themselves and their family.
One is left wondering if it is all a show for the rest of the EU Member States to recognise Malta’s needs and offer solidarity or if the government is genuinely unable to cope. Regardless of the answer, a generation of asylum seekers of all ages are seeing their health and life prospects deteriorate with each passing day of the status quo.
