Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers launched a call for projects to put asylum seekers at work, State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor announced on Wednesday.
De Moor and the federal asylum seekers agency Fedasil made the announcement in a press release, aiming to promote “projects that focus on activating and making asylum seekers participate in society” to match the 2024 guidelines of the Agency and the ones of the Belgian State on migration policy.
“Putting asylum seekers to work is a win-win situation for the people concerned and for companies with a manpower shortage,” the Flemish Christian-Democrat minister (CD&V/EPP) added.
Currently, more than 17,800 asylum seekers residing in reception centres meet the criteria to be allowed to work, according to data provided by the minister’s cabinet when asked by De Tijd.
However, as most of the current 10,000 working asylum seekers are in temporary employment, the minister wants to establish structural cooperation between the reception network and the temporary employment sector to boost the overall number of working asylum seekers.
The types of projects that could be submitted include ensuring that employers provide quality housing for the asylum seekers they employ, innovative forms of co-housing with asylum seekers, and projects to reduce childcare barriers for single parents in the reception network.
Meanwhile, other EU countries are also trying to tackle labour shortages by promoting asylum seekers’ employment. This is particularly the case in Germany, which wants to lower the requirements for acquiring citizenship.
For several years now, Belgium has faced a considerable increase in asylum seekers. In 2022, for example, almost 37,000 asylum applications were registered in Belgium, an increase of 40% compared to 2021.
In the first quarter of the year, the government took measures to tackle the crisis by doubling the number of forced returns and with a new agreement on migration.
However, the Belgian State has been repeatedly condemned for misconduct in managing the asylum crisis. In total, more than 1,100 convictions have been handed down against the Federal State for failing to ensure asylum seekers’ reception. Fedasil itself has been convicted more than 4,500 times for similar offences, with the most recent condemnation from the European Court of Human Rights on 19 July 2023.
(Nina Chabot, Anne-Sophie Gayet| EURACTIV.com)
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