Vulnerable Protection Seekers in Norway: Regulations, Practices, and Challenges

Abstract

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This research report has been established as part of the EU Horizon 2020 VULNER project, which aims to contribute to a better understanding of the experiences of 'vulnerability' as lived by migrants applying for a protection status (such as the refugee status and other complementary forms of humanitarian protection, including the one awarded to victims of human trafficking), and to critically assess the potentials and pitfalls of using 'vulnerability' as a legal and policy standard to guide the development and implementation of migration policies at EU and global level. The VULNER project starts from the common observation, widely documented in the scientific literature, that the requirement to address the specific needs of 'vulnerable' migrants, including asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and unaccompanied minors, is flooding the legal and policy discourse on asylum and migration at EU and global level (as illustrated by the UN Global Compact for Migration and its objective to 'reduce vulnerabilities' in migration, or the current focus at EU level on resettlement programmes for vulnerable refugees namely). Yet, if not based on scientific data and analyses that provide a clear and non-stereotyped understanding of the vulnerabilities that are lived and experienced by migrants, such policy objectives risk failing to address vulnerabilities, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities, or even producing new ones. The overall objective of the VULNER project is to produce knowledge that will assist States in identifying suitable strategies to assess the 'vulnerabilities' of migrants and to address them. This research report presents some of the intermediary research results of the VULNER project, based on the first phase of the project which consisted in mapping the vulnerability assessment mechanisms as developed by state authorities in Norway, including how they are concretely implemented on the ground through the practices of the public servants in charge. The objective was to address the ...