The Steps To Freedom project (STF), set to improve conditions for asylum-seekers in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, recently visited Sweden for a closer look at Swedish detention practice.
STF, initiated by the Latvian Centre for Human Rights (LCHR), aims to identify and promote alternatives to detention, and involves both NGOs and national authorities in the participating countries. UNHCR will support STF with training and expert advice throughout the 18-month duration of the project.
Svetlana Djackova, STF project leader at LCHR, says that the study visit was aimed at learning from the Swedish experience in implementing the rights of asylum-seekers during the asylum procedure and in detention.
- We visited UNHCR; the Migration Board reception and detention facilities in Märsta; Amnesty; Caritas and the Swedish Red Cross. States participating in STF could learn from the Swedish example and improve cooperation between civil society and state authorities dealing with asylum and provide systematic NGO access to detention facilities.
Djackova says that a characteristic that separates Swedish practice from those in the Baltic and Central European regions, is that asylum-seekers are not penalised simply for arriving with false documents. STF participants also took note that asylum-seekers are usually not detained in Sweden because their identity has not been established.
- In many states in Central and Eastern Europe, asylum-seekers are regularly detained, often in poor conditions falling short of international human rights norms. In most states participating in STF, there are no alternatives to detention, and no provisions to guarantee that detention is applied only as a last resort, says Djackova.
At the closing conference in Riga in December 2011, a strategy to promote alternatives to detention will be developed, and a comparative policy paper will be presented to national authorities, NGOs, European and international institutions.
Djackova hopes that the final STF paper will provide an independent assessment and recommendations how to prevent unlawful detention and how to promote alternatives to detention of asylum seekers.
- It is important to promote a common understanding of permissible grounds for detention, since practice differs significantly among European states.
Next up for STF is an international conference in Vilnius, where UNHCR will provide training on detention-related issues.
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