Operations in Slovakia
Working environment
Following the split of the Czechoslovak Federation in 1993, the Slovak Republic re-enacted its accession to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and the 1967 Protocol. UNHCR covers Slovakia out of its regional office in Budapest.
In 2012, 732 people applied for asylum in Slovakia including 34 unaccompanied minors or children separated from families. Thirty-two people received refugee status and 104 received complementary protection. The majority of asylum seekers came from Somalia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Congo and Armenia.
Projects and activities
To ensure that asylum-seekers are able to enter Slovakia and have access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, the agency conducts border monitoring along the country’s frontier with the Ukraine and at its international airport. It has organized training for up to 40 Slovak border guards in order to improve these officials’ professional skills, knowledge of administrative procedures, and the quality of cooperation with interpreters. UNHCR has also made information leaflets available in dispensers at border crossings. In text written in multiple languages, these leaflets describe the rights of asylum-seekers, and offer legal advice.
As part of UNHCR’s Europe-wide Quality Initiative, UNHCR has carried out projects, such as the Asylum Systems Quality Assurance and Evaluation Mechanism, which has improve the interview techniques and decision-making of Slovakian authorities when dealing with asylum claims.
Also, the UNHCR’s Further Developing Asylum Quality project, which was co-funded by the European Refugee Fund, provided an evaluation of asylum procedures in Slovakia with the aim of making them as fair and efficient as possible.
This Quality Initiative also led to the establishment of an internal quality assessment mechanism, and an audit unit, which both inside the Slovak Migration Office. UNHCR has also sponsored the training of lawyers with the Slovak Centre for Legal Aid so that they can better represent asylum applicants.
In 2005, Slovakia was one the first countries where UNHCR became involved in participatory assessments, which is a process where asylum-seekers and refugees, according to the UNHCR´s Age, Gender and Diversity strategy, become partners in the application process. They are given a voice, and are given the right to express themselves to Slovak authorities, UNHCR, and NGOs.
Participatory assessments give the institutions an important additional perspective on the plight of asylum-seekers. They can be made aware of the challenges these people face on a daily basis, such as living conditions in accommodation facilities, and can then recommend improvements.
As for refugee integration, UNHCR is currently focused on implementing its Agenda for the Integration of Refugees in Central Europe. This agenda enables the agency to analyse rules and practices, and identify the weaknesses of the integration system. UNHCR sees integration as a mainstream issue, which should be addressed in all pertinent asylum policies, and the agency is working to improve integration in Slovakia by forming partnerships with key stakeholders, such the government, municipalities, NGOs, and refugees themselves. To this end, the agency has organized roundtable discussions on the issue, and it is lobbying for the creation of a forum that would enables refugees to give feedback on the quality and appropriateness of integration programmes and services.
UNHCR has already identified integration problems, such as difficulties refugees from the Russian Federation face when applying for Slovak citizenship because of a treaty between the two countries that prohibits double nationality. UNHCR recommends that this treaty be revised so that all refugees in the country have equal access to citizenship. The agency also advises Slovak authorities on drafting laws affecting people in flight, including advice on how to transpose international or regional legal instruments into the Slovak system.
UNHCR promotes Slovakia’s adoption of a permanent, small-scale resettlement scheme, based on the country’s previous experience with resettlement. This solution is organized by UNHCR for refugees who can neither return to their home country in safety and dignity nor stay in the country of first refuge, usually because of security concerns.
Since 2009, an Emergency Transit Centre (ETC) has been operating in Humenné in eastern Slovakia. Co-funded by the UNHCR, this centre provides temporary shelter for refugees on their way to resettlement countries. This program was originally set up for a group of Palestinian refugees from the Al-Weed camp in Iraq. In 2010, as a result of an agreement between UNHCR and Slovakia, the centre was opened to all refugees in need of evacuation, regardless of their nationality.
Refugees at this ETC are cared for by social workers and provided with clothes, beds, strollers, food, and personal supplies. Computers have also been donated to this facility, and are chiefly used in education programmes. An UNHCR field assistant works at this ETC. One of agency’s s many contributions to the facility is the publication of a leaflet, written in multiple languages, which informs newly arrived refugees about the centre, and the practical aspects of everyday life, including a description of the nearby community of Humenné.
Although Slovakia recognizes both Statelessness Conventions, it has no special procedure for the determination of statelessness. UNHCR recommends that Slovakia adopt such a procedure.
UNHCR informs the Slovak public about the plight of people in flight through its website, media interviews, public events.