FINAL COUNTRY REPORTS

Bangladesh

Final Country Report

M Sanjeeb Hossain / October 2023

This Report, structured in three sections, explores the status, vulnerabilities and the right to work of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and, in the process, reveals their precarious lives. Section I looks at the precarious status of Rohingya in Bangladesh. Section II explores the various categories that highlight the multifaceted vulnerabilities of members of the Rohingya and host communities and critiques some major assessments designed to identify and alleviate those vulnerabilities. Section III examines the right to work of Rohingya refugees, a right that the Bangladesh Government has not formally granted but is a right that is informally operative due to which refugees can earn small amounts of money through informal labour and as ‘volunteers’ of key partners.

Brazil

Final Country Report

Prof. Natália Medina Araújo & Patrícia Ramos Barros / October 2023

In Brazil, the recognition of refugees is governed by Law 9474/97. This law implements the 1951 Refugee Statute, as well as an expanded definition based on the Declaration of Cartagena, which was recently applied to grant prima facie recognition to nationals of Venezuela.
The fieldwork demonstrates that actors dealing with refugees in Brazil consider the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) process to be impartial. The main reason given is the plurality of actors in the tripartite composition of the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE), and the presence of some invited members with voice, which would favour technical discussion and the exposure of multiple points of view and would reduce political biases in decision-making.

Canada

Final Country Report

Roberto Cortinovis & Andrew Fallone / October 2023

The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) recognises complementary pathways for admission to third countries as an additional ‘solution’ to resettlement and as an expression of solidarity towards countries and communities hosting large numbers of refugees. The 2019 UNHCR ‘Three-Year Strategy on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways’ calls for a sustainable and predictable growth in complementary pathways, with the goal of expanding access to those channels up to two million people by the end of 2028, a target that is double the one million places for resettlement aimed for during the same period.

Jordan

Final Country Report

Lewis Turner / October 2023

This report explores status, vulnerability, and rights for people seeking international protection in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Jordan). It examines how they become recognised as asylum seekers and refugees (or not), the role that vulnerability plays in asylum governance, and the extent to which people seeking international protection meaningfully have the right to work, which is a right that provides an important litmus test for protection standards. It is focused on Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Yemeni protection seekers (i.e. the nationalities that potentially fall under UNHCR’s mandate and are present in Jordan in the largest numbers).

Niger

Country Report

Bachirou Ayouba Tinni , Abdoulaye Hamadou , Thomas Spijkerboer / August 2022

This report analyses the political, legal and financial instruments through which the EU and Niger cooperated in the field of asylum between 2015 and 2021. The analysis is based on a document review, a literature review and 19 interviews with actors involved in asylum in Niger (Annex 1). This analysis focuses on the main instruments: the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), established during the Valletta Summit in October 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis (the EUTF finances the ETM and the provision of asylum in Agadez), and Law 2015-36 implementing the Palermo Protocol on migrant smuggling. The instruments are analysed in six points.

Serbia

Country Report

Olga Djurovic, Rados Djurovic, Thomas Spijkerboer / August 2022

The EU’s role in managing migration and asylum in Serbia has been increasingly gaining in significance since 2015, linked with increasing EU funding (in particular Pre-Accession funding and the Madad Fund) to Serbia. Thus, the EU is becoming the dominant initiator of developments in the field of Serbian migration, asylum, and border management policies, and directly influences the commitment of state institutions thereto. With the Western Balkan Statement of 2015, the EU’s policies toward the Western Balkans and Serbia became formalized for the first time in one political instrument.

South Africa

Final Country Report

Prof. Fatima Khan (Assisted by Niall Marinus and Olivia McCarthy) / October 2023

The object of this Report was to consider the temporary protection granted to Zimbabweans by the South African government under the so-called Zimbabwean Dispensation Program. Further, it was considered if this temporary protection amounted to a ‘complementary pathway’ as enshrined in the United Nations Global Compact on Refuges (GCR), or if it was a form of containment.

Tunisia

Country Report

Fatma Raach, Hiba Sha’ath, Thomas Spijkerboer / August 2022

Before giving a more detailed overview of the findings, one overarching finding merits attention. The most significant factor undermining the protection of vulnerable populations in Tunisia is the absence of a national asylum law specifying the state’s legal obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers on its territory, and transferring responsibility for refugee status determination to the state. While the Asylum law has been drafted and reviewed by local and international legal experts for its alignment with the 2014 Tunisian constitution and international refugee law, it has been blocked by government due to several reasons.

Turkey

Final Country Report

İlke Şanlıer / October 2023

The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) provides a political framework for protecting persons in need of asylum and complementary pathways for UN Member States. This framework includes instruments for responsibility sharing, such as resettlement and financial contributions. Through a multifactorial and relational approach, this Report focuses on the ramifications of externalisation policies of the EU and the instruments that facilitate keeping refugees and asylum seekers in the Turkish asylum regime, the instruments’ impacts on those in need of international protection, and how the EU defies GCR principles. The Report aims to explore the respondents’ opinions and experiences about the asylum governance system in Turkey in line with ASILE Project’s section that focuses on refugees’ rights, status and vulnerabilities.