legal and social conditions for asylum seekers and refugees in ...

SOCIAL CONDITIONS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS
Accommodation
In principle, asylum seekers are free to choose their own place of residence. However, the Aliens
Law introduced a refugee allocation plan under which applicants are registered at reception
centres in order to ensure a balanced distribution of applicants among the municipalities
throughout the country.
In theory, the system, which distinguishes between asylum seekers in the admissibility procedure
and those in the normal determination procedure, is as follows:
(a) admissibility procedure: pursuant to the laws of 10 and 15 July 1996 amending the Aliens
Law, the Minister of Interior is empowered to designate a reception centre as the compulsory
place of registration for applicants in the admissibility procedure. From 16 December 1996,
this has applied to all asylum seekers, except those who have entry documents which are
valid for more than three months.
Even if registration is an administrative formality and does not in principle prevent applicants
from actually living away from the centre, in practice, they are obliged to live in the centre
since it is only there that they will be able to receive social assistance.
Asylum seekers without documents and whose identity cannot be established may be
detained in one of the two state-run detention centres, Centre 127 (Melsbroek) and Centre
127bis (Steenokkerzeel) during the admissibility procedure. Border applicants are usually
taken to Centre 127, whereas in-country applicants are referred to Centre 127bis. It is,
however, rather exceptional to detain in-country applicants, and this normally only concerns
nationalities which are very rarely granted asylum, or second application cases.
(b) normal determination procedure: for asylum seekers whose applications are being
processed in the normal determination procedure, registration by the Minister of Interior is
only required in exceptional cases.
If an applicant has accommodation in a municipality where the number of asylum seekers
does not exceed the legally stipulated quota, he will not be registered elsewhere and will be
referred to a Public Social Assistance Centre (“Centre public d'aide sociale” – CPAS) to
receive social assistance (see “Financial assistance”, below). It is only if the number of
asylum seekers resident in a particular municipality exceeds the quota that the Aliens Office
might designate another place of residence for administrative purposes. In such cases, the
asylum seeker is not obliged to live there but it is only there that he will be able to receive
social assistance.
In practice, however, due to the strong increase in the number of asylum seekers during recent
years and the insufficient number of places available in the reception centres, some changes in
the distribution system have occurred, although this has not yet been reflected in the legislation.
There are currently eight state-run reception centres with an approximate total capacity of 2,100
beds, including the Petit Château in Brussels, Florennes, Rixensart and Kapellen (the latter
centres became operational in spring 1997).
The Belgian Red Cross has 16 centres throughout the territory with a same total capacity of about
2,100 beds.
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Belgium