The Problem - According to the UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide reached 65.3 million at the end of 2015, the highest level since World War II, with a more than 50% increase taking place since 2011, and more than 12.4 million individuals were forced to leave their homes and seek protection elsewhere. In Europe, the migrant crisis dramatically exploded in 2015, when a growing number of refugees and migrants fled to the European Union (EU) to seek asylum, travelling across the Mediterranean Sea or through Southeast Europe. According to Eurostat, EU member states received over 1.2 million first time asylum applications in 2015, a number more than double that of the previous year. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), sadly reports that up to 3,770 people died or disappeared in 2015 in the Mediterranean while trying to migrate to Europe, and overall estimates are that over 25,000 migrants died between 2000 and 2015. Under the revised European Agenda on Migration, since 1999 the EU has been working to create a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and several legislative measures harmonising common minimum standards for asylum were adopted between 1999 and 2005 (first stage of the Common European Asylum System). Among them, the Recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/33/EU (2013) ensures human material reception conditions (such as housing) for asylum seekers across the EU and that the fundamental rights of the concerned persons are fully respected. But even if the EU has spent years building the CEAS, many EU states have yet to properly implement the minimum standards and procedures set out for processing and assessing asylum applications, and for the treatment of both asylum seekers and those who are granted refugee status. The European answers to the problem of the migrants influx demonstrates that large differences exist with regard to the type of facilities and actors involved in the provision of reception. Whereas the majority of EU States accommodate applicants in collective facilities, some accommodate applicants in both collective and private facilities. Most EU States also make use of initial/transit facilities to house applicants during admissibility procedures, and many EU States also involve third parties in the management of reception facilities (e.g. NGOs and private sector companies). Some of the EU states, which represent our target contractors, draw clear institutional distinctions between the framework of “first reception” as hosting of new arrivals, on one hand, and second-line reception as accommodation of persons who have entered the asylum procedure on the other. In practice, what exists is a patchwork of 28 asylum systems producing uneven results, which produces an unstable system with regard to the procedures homogeneity and the reception conditions of the migrant flows.
Impact on European Society - According to international and regional laws, EU states have a responsibility to respect and ensure the human rights of everyone on their territory, and must provide adequate reception conditions in line with standards fixed in Europe in the above-mentioned Recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/33/EU, but countries have differing interpretations of minimum standards and conditions. UNHCR continuously monitors the standard of living and quality of services of reception facilities, considering factors such as the time period asylum-seekers spend in detention, general living conditions in the various facilities (basic hygiene, quality and diversity of meals, availability of sports and recreational opportunities, and access to designated areas for praying), the qualifications of staff and interpreters in these places, the quality of education provided to school-aged children, and the quality of medical care. The effects of migration have important social consequences in Europe and in origin countries, and should be managed with an holistic approach comprising economic (work and resources management), social (education, health and culture issues) and political effects (inclusion and contrast to discrimination) on both side of the migration patterns (source/destination and migrant/caregivers).
Our overall objective - With arrivals of asylum seekers to the European Union occurring on a huge scale, Member States face overwhelming technical and political challenges. The resources and institutional capacity of some Member States have been stressed, leaving people homeless or in overcrowded and otherwise precarious shelter and livelihood conditions. The crisis situation that exploded in 2015 highlights the central importance of well-functioning reception systems for asylum seekers in EU. In this context, our project is clearly conceived and designed to reach the overall objectives that underlie the operations of a successful reception system, as emerged by the large amount of documents and reports carried out by the public and private entities in charge of migrants reception, and by national and international authorities involved in the monitoring and guarantee of asylum seekers rights. Hence, our CUBETTO technical solution set in the broader context of the reception centre models, aiming to provide the material basis for the creation of a dwelling structure able to guarantee decent living conditions and a stimulus to the retake of beneficiaries. Starting from our technical model, we have established a partnership with a Cooperative Company that in the context of northern Italy is accredited to migrants reception management, in order to realize a pilot reception model whose objective is not only the installation of a reception infrastructure respecting the highest reception standards, but also adaptable to be transformed from a second-level reception facility into a social housing system structure.
