Download - Obstacles to Refugee Integration in the European Union Member States

Obstacles to Refugee Integration in theEuropean UnionMember States

EL I Z ABE TH MESTHENEOS

Sextant Group, Department of HealthManagement Organization,National School of Public Health, Athens

EL I Z ABE TH IOANNIDI

Sextant Group, Department of Sociology, National School of Public Health, Athens

Biographical interviews with refugees in all 15 Member States of the European

Union indicated some of the major obstacles to integration they experienced inthe host societies. One of the most fundamental barriers came from the racismand ignorance of some Europeans, experienced at both the personal and

institutional levels. Negative attitudes were compounded by the enforceddependence and marginalization of refugees in Member States with highlydeveloped welfare systems. Personalities of refugees appeared to be the othercritical factor in the ability and wish to be accepted in the new host society. The

paper contains quotations from the interviews that illustrate the process andexperiences of refugees that relate to the issue of integration in the EuropeanUnion.

This paper presents data from a study undertaken in 1999 in the context of aEuropean funded project carried out by the ECRE Task Force on Integration1

aiming at understanding refugee perspectives on integration in the EU, one ofthe accepted durable solutions for refugees. Other work by the Task Force wasconcerned with information about good practice2 by European agencies suchas NGOs and governments who work for refugee integration. The mainobjective of the study, undertaken in all Member States and with refugees froma wide range of backgrounds, was to gain insights from refugees themselvesabout their experiences of adapting to and integrating in the new host society.In particular the role of NGOs and other agencies, including government, insupporting integration, needed to be explored from the experiential perspectiveof refugees.A representative set of voices from refugees throughout Europe was thought

to be essential in understanding the impact of policy and services onintegration. It is common for many agencies to speak on behalf of refugeeswith the attendant danger of ignoring their lived experience. This study focusedon refugees’ personal survival and dynamic integration strategies, recognizing

Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 15, No. 3 2002

&Oxford University Press 2002

this as a way of empowering them. The context of these interviews is aEuropean Union of 15 Member States whose economies, welfare and socialinfrastructure, attitudes and practices towards migrants and refugees are verydiverse. The state welfare systems emerged as continuing important parametersin helping refugee integration, with Southern Member States offering onlypiecemeal and low levels of support. The attempt to move towardsharmonization in refugee practices and policies in Europe is neither easy nora short-term proposition given these continuing difficulties in welfare stateprovisions. Nonetheless it is important that the perspectives and activities ofrefugees themselves are taken into consideration. Despite these expecteddifferences originating in welfare state support and citizenship rights, there alsoemerged shared views, experiences and expectations.The research goal was to explore the great variety of experiences of

refugee integration in these very different national contexts, amongstindividuals who originate from divergent socio-economic, cultural andpolitical backgrounds and who are also diverse in terms of age, genderand their family and kinship ties. Studies on the mental health of refugeechildren (Westermeyer and Wahmanholm 1996, Rousseau 1995), havebrought to light some consequences of adaptation to the new societyincluding depressive symptoms and other mental health problems. Theresearchers expressed the need for further investigation on post-flightresettlement as well as on post migration community environment, as littleinformation is available on these issues.The research presented here provided the opportunity for refugees to

refer to issues and problems they faced in adapting and living in the hostsociety and thus contributes to knowledge about processes of settlement inEurope.

Concepts of Integration

There are extensive debates amongst social scientists as to the nature of thecontemporary relationship between minority cultures and the dominant cultureand society. According to perhaps a conservative estimate by Premdas (1996)there are 4,000 ethnocultural groups worldwide, often living uncomfortablywithin the existing 185 national states. Theories of globalization point to theimportance of increasing mobility and migration in the world today (Cohenand Kennedy 2000). Thus an overwhelming majority of states are now multi-ethnic, often leading to conflicts between different ethno-cultural groups.Hence the debate as to the national identity of those living within the modernstate, the degree to which people should and do belong to the overall politicaland social system. The nature of the relationship between minorities and themajority and in particular the political and social rights of minorities vary inline with prevailing national ideological debates. Countries heavily composedof immigrants such as the USA, Canada and Australia, developed theoriesabout integration of which the melting pot theory (Gordon 1964) is most

Obstacles to Refugee Integration in EU States 305

widely known. Gordon argued for an assimilation sequence over generationsfrom cultural to structural assimilation, and finally the conscious choice toassimilate accompanied by intermarriage.3 The reality of relations between thedifferent ethnic minorities in these countries was highly diverse and, accordingto Rumbaut (1997), the process of assimilation remained incomplete withCanada, Australia and post apartheid South Africa shifting towards anacceptance of cultural pluralism.In Europe, where immigration became an issue only after 1945, this theory

was not widely propounded since the national states did not perceivethemselves as receiving countries. Rex (1996) has pointed to the differentnational reactions in Europe, though debates are generally within a democratictradition which stresses ‘incorporation on equal terms’ (p. 133); up until the1990s, German policy denied the permanent presence of immigrants withassociated political and social rights (Peterson 1999: 8, Sonntag-Wolgast 1999);the French policy position assumed the cultural and political integration of allthose within its territories as citizens and the disappearance of minoritycultures (Murard 1999: 30); while the UK and the Netherlands accepted thatmulticulturalism should be the policy ideal (Atkin 1996). This was clear in thestatement in 1968 by the then British Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, that‘integration’ had to be understood ‘not as a flattening process of uniformity,but cultural diversity, coupled with equal opportunity, in an atmosphere ofmutual tolerance’ (Rex 1996: 134). In the paper presented here the perceptionsof refugees concerning integration are near to the perspective of Roy Jenkins:despite the varying national contexts, refugees shared the common dream ofequal opportunities and rights, democratic participation and the acceptance ofcultural diversity without discrimination and racism. In this research refugeeswere left to define the term ‘integration’ in their own way. While for themajority it was understood to mean a process of learning to accept and beaccepted in the new society, there were those who reacted negatively to theword as if it were equivalent to ‘assimilation’, i.e. forced to become like those inthe dominant culture.Clearly integration can be measured using objective indicators that compare

refugees’ position to that of the dominant majority, including access to jobs,education, housing, political representation and participation. This papermakes no attempt to measure the degree of integration overall since this is bestexamined quantitatively, over time and comparatively. Nonetheless refugees’own experiences of the dominant society’s stance towards them in key areas ofintegration—employment, housing, education and health—and their experi-ences of racism and discrimination, are reported in this paper as evidence ofnational policies and ideologies of cultural pluralism in practice.

The European Context of Integration

Refugees arrive in societies with very different histories and attitudes towardsimmigration and reception. The EU Member States implement different

306 Elizabeth Mestheneos and Elizabeth Ioannidi

policies and practices towards refugees not only in terms of the varyingduration of asylum determination procedures but also the very different levelsof socio-economic rights accorded to asylum seekers, those with subsidiaryforms of protection and recognized refugees. In some EU Member States someor all of these categories are the targets of integration policies and governmentsponsored programmes, while in other States a more ‘laissez faire’ attitudeprevails. This tends to reflect the more recent phenomenon for the Southernstates of being receiving countries of refugees and immigrants (Naxakis et al.2001). At the same time refugee policy is in line with the national socialprotection and welfare system.These varying factors provide the context in which refugees must try to

adapt to their new host society and obviously have a significant influence ontheir perception of integration, recorded in the interviews.4 In practice all thesefactors emerge in the experience of the refugees interviewed. Thus in responsesgenerated by the biographical-interpretive method to the question concerningintegration, their answers varied. Refugees in Southern Europe werepreoccupied with meeting their material needs, whereas in countries wherethese needs are normally met and comprehensive programmes exist, frustra-tions and disappointment with employment, the quality of language teachingor the suitability and location of the social housing provided, werepredominant. Many refugees are aware of the differences in social welfareprovisions existing in EU countries and make their own comparisons betweentheir experience and that of their friends or relatives living elsewhere in Europe.Integration is inevitably affected by the presence of a refugee’s family or kin aswell as a wider community of fellow nationals who can provide support andsolidarity; this varies for each individual and the country in which he lives.Another issue relating to integration for refugees is the different national

criteria for gaining nationality and citizenship, and refugees in those countrieswith stricter and more resistant policies to the granting of citizenship expressedthis view most vigorously.The role of self-help refugee community organisations in the integration of

refugees constitutes another difference in EU national contexts. The UK andthe Netherlands encourage and have an established tradition of fostering andpromoting community organizations to provide services to other refugees, thusinvolving refugees actively in their own integration. In contrast, Scandinaviancountries assume that refugees should be represented and supported mainlythrough the Local Authorities as well as their own associations (Mestheneosand Charapis 1999). Meanwhile in France, the formation of organizations byethnic minorities, whether they are migrants or refugees, has traditionally beenregarded as a failure of integration (Mestheneos and Ioannidi 1999). However,there is a growing recognition of the specific cultural or religious needs offoreign communities and the empowering role which community organizationscan play in integration (ECRE 1998). In southern Europe refugees are ingeneral less well organized and have limited if any support or access to fundingfor the formation of their own associations.


Methodology

The research project was ambitious in terms of the time and geographicalspan covered. In using qualitative methods of investigation to explore indepth refugee perspectives on integration, a decision was made to combinemethodologies. The opening question used a modified form of biographicalinterpretative method (Rosenthal 1993, Kohli 1986, Schutze 1992, Fischer-Rosenthal 1995, Bertaux and Kohli 1984). Refugees were asked to tell theirstory from the moment they arrived in the host country, emphasizing theirexperiences of coming to live, adapt and integrate in the new host society andending with their expectations about the future. They were told to take asmuch time as they needed and to talk about any issues they felt wererelevant. They were thus able to construct their personal responseschronologically and thematically in the way they wished. At the end of thisinitial narration, a number of semi-structured open questions followed on keyintegration issues such as employment, education, health, training, housing,and social-community relations, as well as experiences with NGOs or otheragencies.The narration was fully recorded and subsequently transcribed. Particular

attention was paid to the issue of anonymity and reassurance that the datawould be used only for the purposes of the research, given the political andemotional sensitivities of many refugees to the situation of being interviewed.The analysis subsequently took into consideration the main themes which theinterviewee prioritized in his presentation, the language used (description,argument, evaluation, report), the length of time dedicated to each subject, theemotions expressed, if any.In using this method questions are posed in a neutral way that does not

define or provoke either positive or negative responses to the subject ofintegration. Some began by talking of the weather, others by thanking thehost country for accepting them, others by reporting their immediateburning problem. Refugees constructed their answers about integration inrelation to:

— their personal characteristics, social background e.g. personality, gender,age, education, family, religion, culture,

— their past history in the country e.g. the length of time here, experiences ofinitial reception,

— their preoccupation at the moment of the interview e.g. divorce,unemployment, illness, housing,

— the conditions they face in the country that has offered them asylum.

The very large variations in refugee backgrounds and the different contexts inwhich they experience their refugee status, makes it difficult to come tostrictly comparable results. Despite these limitations, the initial narration andthe presentation of their lives by refugees shared many common elements,allowing the researchers to abstract some of the main themes and issues that


consistently appeared. Thus the report goes beyond simply reportingindividual stories of refugee integration and adaptation to the host societiesof Europe, to an understanding of the mechanisms of adaptation(Mestheneos et al. 1999).

The Interviewers

The interviewers were identified by NGOs for refugees in the respectiveMember States. They were trained and supported in their interviewing by theresearch team. Thirteen nationalities were represented amongst the 16interviewers; twelve were refugees, and one was a migrant; they were equallydivided by gender, though this happened by chance; their ages (predominantlyin their 30s and 40s), religions and origins varied. The interviewers betweenthem spoke 28 different languages. Each interviewer was able to speak at leastthree languages, some could communicate adequately in as many as seven. Allwere fluent in either English or French and in the language of their hostcountry, these linguistic abilities being a significant criterion in their originalselection. The interviewers came from diverse occupational backgrounds butwere all highly educated, each with at least one university degree obtained intheir country of origin or in a second country of study.

Sample Interviewed

Interviewers selected 10 refugees taking into consideration that they shouldattempt to include in their sample refugees with varying characteristics. Thesewere to include gender; nationality (taking into consideration the proportionsof refugees in each Member State in terms of their national or ethnic origins,with more being interviewed from the largest groups); marital status toinclude the single, married, and those with and without children; agesbetween 18 and 65 years; varying types of legal residential status(Convention, humanitarian, exceptional leave to remain). They were alsoasked to include those with varying lengths of time in the host countryranging from 1 to 10 years subsequent to legal recognition as a refugee. Theywere also required to select from amongst the highly educated and those withlittle or no education; and finally to include working, unemployed, andstudent refugees.The interviewers had two months in which to identify and interview the ten

selected refugees. Refugee interviewees were found through the NGOs forrefugees, through refugee community organizations and their own networks.143 interviews were completed in approximately 18 different languages—theone used in each circumstance depended on which was the most comfortableand accessible to both the interviewer and interviewee. It was fully recordedafter agreement with the interviewee, and subsequently transcribed.5


Analysis of Data

Each interviewer was responsible for the full transcription of two interviews.The first interview was sent to the research team to ensure that interviewers hadunderstood the procedures and techniques of interviewing. This enabledcomments to be made so that the remaining nine interviews would follow theprotocol. Subsequently the interviewer was requested to transcribe the ‘best’interview in line with guidelines provided by the research team. The criteria setfor this included the interviewer’s sense that the interview gave a fulldescription of a refugee’s experiences in the host country, that the openingresponse was rich in material and that it covered many of the substantialthemes relating to integration.The transcription involved writing down the interview in the original

language in which it was conducted, and translating it as faithfully as possibleinto French or English. It was important that where a translator6 helped theinterviewer, they worked closely to ensure that there was as little loss ofmeaning as possible. All tapes were sent to the research team in Athens. Fulluse was made of the transcriptions and as far as possible very little interventionwas made with the English used except that which aided clarity. Thus despitesometimes having been translated twice from the original language of theinterview e.g. from Arabic to Italian to English, the characters and styles ofspeech of some individuals still emerge.

Findings

This section focuses on selected findings that emerge from the data (Glaser andStrauss 1967) concerning the obstacles that refugees experience in living andintegrating in Europe. The aim of this paper is not to concentrate on thedifferences existing in terms of the varying national contexts where refugees areliving, nor on the differences arising from refugees’ varying backgrounds. Theemphasis is placed on Europe-wide common attitudes, experiences andperceptions of integration reported by refugees. They are presented underheadings and selected quotations illustrate the issue from the refugee’sperspective.

Initial Reception

Those refugees who experienced very long delays as asylum seekers beforeobtaining their refugee status, emphasized this period as still being significantsince they had been scarred by this negative period in their lives. Some refugeesrecounted the negative consequences from the lack of adequate receptionfacilities in some of the Southern Member States.A young Bosnian woman in Denmark tells of the lost years involved in

seeking for asylum and not being helped to learn and speak the language:


It looks as if I never lived between my 26th and 29th years of age. I was 26 when Icame and I was 29 when I got permission to stay but it seems as if someone gaveme some sleeping pills and I slept for three years.

An educated Sudanese man in his 30s and living in Sweden reported:

In the camp we did nothing, we only played cards and talked to each other. When

we moved to the city we were given some money to take care of ourselves and wealso started learning Swedish. After a while we lost interest because of the coldweather and the long period we had to wait for our status recognition.

Racism and Ignorance

The widely prevailing ignorance and racism7 of many individual Europeanswere highlighted in interviews as affecting the possibilities for socialintegration. The colonial pasts and continued economic dominance of manyof the European Union countries has had an effect on the attitudes of somepeople in the host society, even if they do not consider their attitudes as racist.It is rather the comfortable assumption of superiority that becomes reflected inmany of their relationships with refugees (and indeed other foreigners fromcountries that are perceived as poorer or less developed). Many refugees, beingthemselves from the better off and educated sections of their own country,confront these attitudes with dismay, feeling hurt and surprised. Racism takesmany forms, all of which hurt individual refugees: it must be assumed that ifthey did not hurt they would not have mentioned the experiences in theirinterviews.A Liberian young woman in Athens said:

They don’t like us from the third world countries. Italian or Americans they treat

them nicely because they are like them. The rest of us they look down as if we areinferior. What wrong have we done them?

A Sudanese educated woman talked about her experience of the Austrianperceptions of African women:

It was tragic when you find an Austrian asking you ‘Are there any other educatedwomen in your country except you?’ Then I was asking myself ‘We have a lot of

information about Europe, but why do the Austrians know nothing about us?’

A Zairian man told about his experience after he divorced his Finnish wife:

In this system, they treat us, we foreigners, like animals. They always treat us likeNegroes. It isn’t good. I have experiences here with a Finnish woman. They’vemade me suffer because of my two children . . . It’s better to go and die in Africa.The problems that I have here make me suffer but I just want to give them, my

children, my proper identity, I need to arrange my life. They treat us, strangers,like rubbish. Here they respect dogs, but not us black people.

Institutionalized racism is by far one of the most insidious and overwhelmingobstacles to integration. Thus in all areas: employment, housing, training,


education, the assumption that refugees must be inferior, puts barriers to anykind of integration.An educated Somalian woman living in Denmark said:

I am very disappointed. I dreamt about Denmark as a democratic country withopen minded and democratic people. But the reality is completely different. WhenI go to ask for a job, even before I say something, they ask me if I would like to

clean their office.

An African refugee in Finland spoke about his experiences with the police:

If we have women with us when we are driving or when we are driving a car with agood marque, especially a Saab or a BMW, the police arrest us and ask us to takethe breathalyser test and ask what are we doing with this car. Once they said to us

clearly that we should go home to our country and this makes it a bit difficult tointegrate.

A Sudanese woman in the UK told of her feelings when queuing for socialsecurity benefits:

You get terrible looks from the staff. They look at you as if you are taking themoney from the government without giving something back in return. They don’tactually say that but you get it from their behaviour, attitude, they way they treat

you which is different from an English person.

Though the illustrations are drawn from black people, the observations aboutracism, xenophobia and discrimination were not confined to them.

Social Class

Compounding the issue of racism and the assumption of the inferiority ofrefugees is the fact that in some Member States, especially in the North, manyrefugees come from well-educated middle and upper class backgrounds. Thisaffects refugees’ expectations of integration and many cannot adjust to theirloss of social status. Only a few are willing or able to start again. This involveslearning the local language to the level of educated people in the host societyand re-qualifying or learning new skills as a way of achieving and regainingsome of their lost social status. Others struggle to keep their pride and provetheir equality with the locals of the same social class.In Germany a woman from Sri Lanka commented on the low initial

expectations held by organizers of language classes for refugees:

They told me: if you are able to work and you manage it is enough. But I wantedto be in a position to fill in a form, to talk to the teachers etc. Now I am attending

a course which adjusts to my time. My son will start school soon and I want to beable to help him.

An Algerian man talked about learning Italian:

Learning does not mean learning the language as a foreigner would learn it, in thestreet. I have to learn it properly because, among other things, I’ve got a degree


and in order to convey my experiences I have to speak the same language andabove all the same language that a graduate normally speaks here in Italy, that isa certain type of vocabulary. . . . So I have to study.

Culture

Being brought up in a different culture affects the experiences of integration,sometimes positively, but more commonly it represents a barrier. This does notrelate to education but to central values and the fact of not having previouslyexperienced individualistic Western cultures and society.An educated Tunisian man said:

I am a Muslim and I practise it. There are things that are very important for me,like being calm. I’ve found many people with different cultures and differentbehaviour. I am a bit shocked by this contact even though I know that it is a rich

experience to know about other cultures.

Recognition of cultural differences has to be considered in designing andimplementing services used by refugees. Thus in the health services the fact thathealth professionals may be unable to understand refugees at critical momentsor may not be of the same gender, can be experienced as a barrier. A well-educated, Muslim, Sudanese woman in Austria said:

Once I went to the radiologist for an examination. He asked me to take my blouseoff. I was shocked. How could I take my blouse off in the presence of a strangeman. For me it was not logical but for him it was normal.

A graduate woman in her 40s from former Yugoslavia pointed out thatthough she is from Europe there are still cultural contrasts with her hostcountry:

We suffered a lot during the war. Now we want to enjoy ourselves, to laugh, to be

optimistic, but the problem is the people here are more depressed than we are andI cannot understand them because they have everything here.

A Sudanese young woman admitted that after several years she still had noSwedish friends and most of her friends were African:

At first I thought it was the language but now that I speak I still have no Swedish

friends. I think it is the nature of this society.

An educated African refugee woman with a similar experience tried toexplain this social impenetrability to the interviewer:

A Finn told me that from a young age they teach their children an attitude ofintrospection. That is to say the Finns hide their feelings. They are introverted. Sofor him to really know you takes years.

In contrast a young Indian man living in Portugal thought there were fewdifficulties in living in a different culture:


Most refugees are happy to live in Portugal if they have a good income because itis a peaceful country. The police and the authorities are not strict like France andGermany where they ask for legal documents everywhere they see a stranger.

During weekends you see all strangers meet at one popular place called ‘PracaFigueira’ and exchange views and pass on the news of their country and go fordrinks together. Nobody feels lonely here, everybody has his or her friends. . . .

A divorced Eritrean woman in her 30s explained that she likes Swedishpeople, that she was accustomed to living with foreigners as she used to travel alot with her ex-husband, but that she particularly likes the freedom andeconomic independence of women. However despite living and working forthree years in Sweden she said:

I’m very reluctant to do things that I would like to because I’m afraid that otherswill gossip about me . . . After my divorce I also lost most of my family friends.Now I have both African and Swedish friends but I prefer women from Sweden

so I can learn the language and also keep a distance from Africans who remindme of my past.

Welfare State Systems

Those countries offering substantial support to refugees in the way of welfarestate support and benefits also sometimes helped confirm the picture ofrefugees as less able, dependent and belonging to the socially excluded.Bureaucratic procedures and inflexibility, over-generosity and enforceddependency acted to inhibit initiatives by refugees to become independent.Public housing provision for refugees and the fact that refugees can onlyafford low rents, often resulted in them being located in neighbourhoodswhere many marginal, deprived and socially excluded local people live. Thisfurther tends to brand refugees as being in a category of dependence andinferiority, and hinders them from making friends with people sharing thesame class and educational background and providing appropriate friendshipand support.A young married Sudanese woman whose husband is studying at a Swedish

university and receiving both a scholarship and social assistance told us:

In my tradition it is not good to depend on others for living. He is a young man,he has to work, he told me he looked every where unsuccessfully. After a year I

discovered that all foreigners are like that, and gradually I got used to that. I feellike begging. In fact it is not different from asking people on the streets.

On the other hand the lack of support by the public authorities in SouthernEurope leads to tremendous problems of initial reception and survival; thosewho manage this have had to be particularly active in the local society, legallyand illegally. However, though they have developed integration strategies inthe local societies they cannot easily be included in the labour market at the


level of their education and professional qualifications and thus remainmarginal.An educated Algerian man in Italy said:

I’ve been lucky, I found a house: there are refugees that, when I look at them I’ve

got tears in my eyes. A recognized political refugee sleeping in the street, I don’tknow, he’ll become a drunkard, a tramp. . . .That is the problem because until wecan expect at least, I don’t know, the minimum, a lodging, a place where to sleep,

where to put one’s head on the pillow, this is the problem . . .

An African girl in Spain also reported the same experience:

You cannot integrate people when they are sleeping outside, they have no food toeat, that’s absolutely nonsense.

Employment

Throughout the EU refugees find difficulty in obtaining legal employment.This is due not only to objective labour market difficulties in the MemberState, e.g. high rates of unemployment, but also to barriers that do notpermit refugees to find permanent employment in jobs commensurate withtheir abilities and training. Perhaps the major problem is the lack ofrecognition of qualifications from third world countries, a necessaryprerequisite for employment in skilled work and the professions. Additionallythe prejudices and preferences of employers, including the state, for localpeople acts as a significant barrier.A Bosnian woman, a judge in her country of origin, gained recognition for

her qualification from the government but could not find work:

I experienced that no firm or institution wanted to recognize it, even though I

have the paper where it is written that my education is on the same level as theeducation of a Danish jurist. Sometimes I have lost competition with a Dane whohas just a few months in some kind of training.

A poet from the Congo in his mid 30s and living in the Netherlands felt veryupset by the devaluation of his diploma in modern literature and said:

They said the university I went to was another level. This was the way they saw

my diploma but I counted on my brain. The diploma is just a piece of paper. Youcan fake your diploma but your experience never. Within five years I won twoliterature prizes in the Netherlands.

Finally, if the main mechanisms for finding work are through personalcontacts, friends and families, as is overwhelmingly the case in the SouthernMember States, refugees have to cope with another invisible but real form ofsocial exclusion. About the Southern European situation, a Peruvian universitystudent reported her experiences in Spain when trying to find work:


Moreover the personal and kinship networks function here to a great extent. Theymay function in many countries but here it’s more. So a refugee who hasn’t gotthese contacts, it’s more difficult for him.

Age and Personality

Clearly two other critical factors promoting or acting as obstacles tointegration, concern the age at which a refugee arrives in the host countryand the personality of the individual. It appears that in all countries youngerpeople are far more able to adapt easily to the host society regardless ofwhether they perceived their exile to be short or long term. Parents oftendeferred integration in the new host society to their children, while older agegroups still thought of the circumstances in their home country and thefeasibility of return.An Iraqi Kurdish, educated woman with three children and living in the

Netherlands said:

I have no expectations. I live day by day. I don’t care anymore. I wonder why

sometimes. Maybe it is because I have become a refugee. I don’t feel anything. Ijust hope for a better future for my children.

A Gambian man, a politician in his home country and living in exile inSpain, illustrated the quandary of refugees:

Home is home. It was never my intention to come and stay here for good. It will

depend if there is a change of government, a change to democratic government.But my children tell me ‘If you want to go, you can go back. But we are not goinganywhere. We are staying in Spain. We’ve had enough at home and we don’t want

to start life from zero.’

The personality of a refugee plays an important role in the strategies theyadopt for integration. Some refugees are good social strategists and havepersonalities which enable them to reach out to others, to feel optimistic andable to adjust even if they too have been through traumatic experiences. Othersare trapped in past lives and traumas and cannot easily find ways out of theircurrent situation. Character and personality exist prior to individualsbecoming refugees and may be independent, to a great extent, of education,income and culture. It appears that some refugees are more able than others todeal with uncertainty, new cultures and situations, the traumas of the past.Others need a lot more help and support. It can be expected that those who aremore active and positive will also be those who are able both to take advantageof what is offered in the host society and also to make efforts to reach out intothe society. While not all such attempts are successful, some cases are. AKurdish man, now in his 40s and living in Belgium, had developed a number ofsuch strategies including training and retraining, flexibility in work, andseeking friendships with local people. He recounted how he had had to changehis job since it was hundreds of kilometres away from his Belgian girl friend:


I decided to find something else. I followed a new course in IT and at the sametime I tried to integrate myself with sport, so I was a member of the national teamfor Belgium. We travelled in Europe and once outside.

Depending on the personality of the refugee, some are able to reach out andnetwork with neighbours while others, more introverted, remain isolated—andthis even within the same country. Contrast the experiences of two refugees inLuxembourg. A young Iraqi man said:

When you live in such a society you feel isolated. More than that, relations withneighbours are virtually non existent. I have no idea what my neighbours are like.

This contrasts with the experiences of a Peruvian refugee who found supportfrom the parish:

. . . I had a few acquaintances. I made the acquaintance of the parish priest and it

was him who offered me the work. I had never been unemployed. As soon as I gotmy status the next day I started working.

Lack of Information

Despite the presence in all countries of organizations, public and private,designed to help refugees, many in all Member States reported findingdifficulties in accessing them and the information they provided.A woman teacher from Iran in Germany said:

At that time when I didn’t have an apartment I didn’t know where to stay and

where to sleep. That was my biggest problem. I was nearly in the street. I had noaccess to any NGOs or even someone to help me. Most of the time it was bychance or by contact, especially through my country people, that I was able to

achieve what I wanted.

Despite the fact that he was very pleased to have found asylum in the UKwhich provides a large variety of refugee services, often organized by refugeesthemselves, an educated Congolese man said:

The problem is how to get access to the refugee society, you must know whatservices are available for you before you ask for help. . . .You have to spend a lot

of time asking questions and sometimes you are humiliated because some peopledon’t like answering when they hear you’re a foreigner. Imagine those who don’tspeak the language, it was very difficult for me to find out about the services

available.

Discussion

Inevitably any foreigner meets certain obstacles in his or her efforts to integratein a new society. What emerged from the research is that whatever the nationalcontext or the background of the refugee, there were common key issues in theprocess of integration. There were also differences related mainly to welfare


systems, to citizenship rights for refugees and bureaucratic processes, as well associo-cultural contexts. Thus the discrimination patterns were experienceddifferently in northern and southern Member States.Among the common issues that emerged as critical were employment and

language competence for most refugees. However, two other factors were keyin the integration process. The first concerns the individual personality of therefugee, how they reacted to the loss of their country, family and social status,and how these personal traits were encouraged or discouraged in the nationalsocial structural context in which they found themselves living. The second wasthe widespread but often covert institutional racism common throughoutEurope. This latter represented a glass wall, that only a few could both see andclimb over. The need for Europe to change is summed up in the words of anAfghani doctor in the Netherlands:

You always hear things like foreigners, refugees, minorities, fortune seekers. Weare trying hard to integrate and participate. My dream is that one day I would not

hear these names. My dream is an equal society with one country and nationality.

There is an interplay between institutionalized racism and the personalities andexperiences of some refugees. Some by their force of will and personal charmand abilities overcome and change aspects of the host society. Personalstrategies by refugees to gain acceptance in the European host societies appearto be particularly significant in the integration process. However, if supportstructures are absent, difficult to access, discriminatory or inadequate, theprocess of integration becomes very hard, condemning many to socialmarginality or even social exclusion.The research contributes to the argument that governments and NGOs

should be aware of the necessity of including refugees in policy planning,including the design, operation and organization of services for them. Refugeeswith their active participation in their own advocacy bodies and as advisors aregood agents in facilitating integration in Europe.

1. The ECRE Task Force on Integration was a consortium of seven non-governmentalorganizations working under the auspices of ECRE—(European Council onRefugees and Exiles) which is also responsible for policy development. The

partners in the Task Force and their areas of responsibility are as follows: theBritish Refugee Council—Employment, the World University Service—Education,the Italian Refugee Council—Health, the Dutch Refugee Council—Housing, the

Greek Council for refugees—Community and Cultural Integration, France Terred’Asile—Vocational Training, the Flemish Refugee Council—CoordinatingSecretariat.

2. See the Good Practice Guides to Integration of Refugees in the European Union,

available on www.refugeenet.org.3. While intermarriage would appear to be an indicator of integration, it does not

guarantee any permanence in inter-ethnic acceptance and tolerance; c.f. Jewish–

German intermarriages pre World War II, ex-Yugoslavia interfaith marriages beforethe civil war. The wider political and ideological framework may undermine thiskind of individual strategy and decision.


4. For detailed and comprehensive information about the socio-cultural context ofintegration and the organization of specific programmes and services in the differentMember States, the reader should refer to the ECRE Working Paper: ‘The State of

Refugee Integration in the European Union’ (October 1998); and to the research ofthe Task Force partners on specific themes (education, employment, vocationaltraining, housing, health, community and culture) which can be found on

www.refugeenet.org.5. Three interviews were not recorded because suspicions about the anonymity of the

interview process remained strong.

6. Translators if different from the interviewers, were drawn from the NGO refugeeorganizations and were thus sensitive and shared the same common meanings.

7. Rex makes the point (1996: 132) that some xenophobia and racism towardsincoming migrants and refugees should be taken for granted in any indigenous

population.

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MS received February 2001; revised MS received May 2002


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