By Sheila Cross | Legal Representative and Project Leader
The results of A.Ss.I.S.T.’s legal work can be life changing. (see our case study below)
Since World Refugee Day, A.Ss.I.S.T. continues our work responding to asylum seeker and refugee enquires and providing them with legal services. Most recently there has been a significant increase in the number of people arriving on the Greek Islands (Aegean and Dicadonese). Since July 2023 there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking internaitonal protection in Greece with over 17,000 people arriving by boat from Turkey to the Aegean and Dodecanese Islands, 10,000 of whom arrived in September 2023. It remains uncertain if the pushbacks to Turkey have ceased, but the fear inspired by the pushbacks remains with a high number of people now undertaking even more dangerous routes from the south Turkey to the Dodecanese. The Greek authorities advice that, in recent talks, the Turkish authorities have agreed take further action to prevent people leaving. The need for free information and legal services will continue to be necessary.
A.Ss.I.S.T. provides legal services to approximately 2,000 people annually. Many more benefit from free information, administrative support and referral to other essential service providers for food, accommodation, medical, psycho-social and other welfare services. From July to September 2023, A.Ss.I.S.T. lawyers worked on over 400 cases serving more than 430 clients of 17 nationalities requiring interpreter services in 11 languages (Amharic, Arabic, English, Farsi/Dari, French, Krio, Lingala, Portuguese, Somali, Tigrinya, and Urdu and located in over 12 locations in Greece.
Although we raised only a small amount of funds for this project, it was spent on payment our volunteer on-call interpreters/translators living allowances. All on-call volunteers are or were themselves asylum seekers with the lived experience of our beneficiaries providing our lawyers with insights to their experiences and to their culutres. Their services are eseential to our service delivery. The tasks of all Team members are very interdependent: each relies on the others to provide the services. The interpreters are the channel of communication permitting our clients and lawyers to understand each other. Interpreter/translator services are available in Amharic, Arabic, Farsi/Dari, French, Krio, Lingala, Somali and Urdu - and we are able to reach out for interpreter services in other languages less common to our target audience: Bengali, Sorani, Kurmanji, Porturgese and Spanish. We have served applicants for international protection from 31 nationalites plus stateless persons in 14 languages other than English and Greek.
Our volunteer Client Services Managers, most often graduates in studies related to our work, undertake internships: their role is to respond to queries via two WhatsApp helplines, liaise with clients, interpreters/translators, and lawyers to coordinate and schedule appointments, maintain client records, and assure relevant documentation is available to our lawyers in a GPDR-secure system. They are required to commit for a minimum of three months and are provided with free accommodation.
Already experienced in asylum law, two of our current Greek lawyers have worked continuously with our Team since mid-2020 building on their experience in asylum law through the constant changes in legislation, regulations and a plethora of Ministerial decisions and directives. The contacts established over time with authorities in Chios, in Athens and in many parts of Greece often proves of significant value to the welfare of our beneficiaries. Our most senior lawyer has now over 7 years’ experience in practising asylum law and has mentored others in this field of law. His commitment to our mission shared by our other lawyers, their extensive experience, the breadth and depth of their knowledge and the networks that they have established with Greek authorities would be exceptionally difficult to replace.
While we do not specialize in cases for any specific groups, so numerous are the cases of gender-based violence survivors and of LGBTQI+ people persecuted in their home countries, our lawyers are well-versed in their representation and our interpreters aware of the sensitivities involved. we have developed good cooperation with others whose services do focus uniquely on the welfare of these groups: ActionforWomen-CH, Emantes, Positive Voice and Safe Place Greece. Below is an anonymised case study of a gender-based violence survivor:
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE – CASE STUDY.
A young woman from sub-Saharan Africa, vulnerable and traumatized, alone in Greece is applying for international protection. She is a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM) and was being forced into an unwanted arranged marriage in her home country. Currently, she is receiving psychological support.
In her home community, the family structure and hierarchy are very strict. The head of the family has complete control and decides for all family members, without any possibility of being challenged. For this applicant, her uncle is head of the family. He is in favor of genital mutilation, is abusive towards the female members of the family in many ways and forces them into unwanted acts. He forced one of the client’s cousins to undergo FGM, a very painful and dangerous operation, from which she died a few days later. Unperturbed by the death of the applicant’s cousin, he arranged for the applicant to marry a powerful businessperson well-known in the area: a fanatical Muslim and an advocate of female ‘circumcision’. The client tried to refuse both the marriage and the mutilation, but to no avail. She was kidnapped and taken to a rudimentary clinic to begin the mutilation operation, which was only partially completed when a family member tried to protect her by helping her leave the hospital and advising her to leave the country. This family member is now in prison for helping her, accused of violating family law. The young woman fled the country as soon as she could and the mutilation procedure was not completed.
Should she have to return to her home country, this applicant will be forced to complete the procedure and to marry an abusive powerful man or she could be abandoned by her family. Either way, she will be exposed to many forms of coercion and violence.
An A.Ss.I.S.T. lawyer represented this applicant: attended her interview at the Asylum Service and submitted an additional memo in support of her case. Her decision is expected soon.
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