Migrants claiming asylum go through rigorous procedures when they arrive in Malta, as genuine refugees are sifted from economic migrants and others who do not qualify for protection, Assistant Refugee Commissioner Nathalie Massa Zerafa has explained.

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries,” Ms Massa Zerafa said from the outset. 

The Office of the Refugee Commissioner is obliged to assess whether a person claiming asylum deserves to be granted protection or not – a task which she describes as “extremely difficult”. 

According to the law, a migrant has to tick a very specific set of criteria to be granted international or local protection.

“Not every asylum seeker is fleeing persecution. Some are economic migrants, in search of a better life.

“When a person tells us that the reason he is claiming asylum is that he was starving to death in his homeland that alone does not enable him to qualify for protection.”

The asylum landscape is a highly volatile one. In the past, the vast majority of asylum seekers in Malta came from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Mali and Ghana.

But the picture has now changed completely, with the top three nationalities of asylum seekers being Libyans, Syrians and Ukrainians.

Every applicant has to undergo a credibility assessment, which culminates in a two-hour, one-to-one interview with the office’s case workers.

“This is very crucial to the asylum process. We first have to believe the applicant’s story before we can move to the second step of determining whether they qualify for protection or not.

“In fact, the majority of our rejections are due to a lack of credibility – basically, we do not believe their story, that they are telling us the truth. They do not substantiate their claims.” 

Applicants are obliged to cooperate and to provide detailed information on why they are claiming asylum.

During the lengthy, recorded interview, asylum seekers are asked a multitude of detailed questions – each moulded to the person’s life situation and story – to determine whether they are telling the truth. 

See video above. More at http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150823/local/putting-migrant-myths-to-rest.581553

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