Denmark: Asylum seekers only get lunch package
01 November 1998
Since 3 July this year a new policy towards asylum seekers has been in operation. A majority in the Danish parliament voted in favour of tightening the reception procedures for asylum seekers just before parliament finished its proceedings for the summer break. Under the amended the Aliens Law the police were given powers to put an asylum seeker on so-called "motivating measures" (popularly called the "lunch package"). When the police - who are the first authority an asylum seeker meets when they arrives in Denmark - find that the individual, when questioned, does not cooperate fully in identifying the travel route, the trafficker, the asylum seekers ID they are put on the "lunch package".
Being on "the lunch package" means the you don't get the "pocket money" otherwise handed out to an asylum seeker. Instead you receive every fortnight a package with different food products. You are supposed to live on that until you understand that you have to cooperate with the authorities and give them the information which you are assumed to be withholding.
During the first three months of this new law the police have recommended that the Immigration Service hand out lunch packages to 1,122 persons who arrived at the airport or by other means without the necessary papers. The Immigration Service - which is responsible for handling an asylum application in the first phase of the procedure - accepted the police recommendation in 229 cases, reversed it in 414 cases and the rest (479) still being considered. Of the 229 cases, the Immigration Service have taken 34 people off "lunch packages" because, according to the police, they start to cooperate and 27 persons due to their ill-health.
What does non-cooperation mean? Questioned in Parliament the Minister of Interior, Mr Thorkild Simonsen, responsible for asylum policy, had to admit that there are no guidelines regulating the criteria according to which the police decide who is cooperating and who is not. This means that it is up to the individual police officer handling the case to decide whether an asylum seeker has shown a willingness to cooperate or not.
The Danish Refugee Council has received several examples of how the police argue for a recommendation of the lunch packages. In one case which is typical the asylum seeker was not able to produce ID-papers but said that she could have her identity verified through relatives in Germany and that it would take her a few weeks to contact them. She was immediately recommended to get the lunch package due to her non-cooperation!
Under pressure from the opposition in parliament and because of a complaint to the Ombudsman by a jurist at the Danish Centre for Human Rights the Minister of Interior has now decided to formulate guidelines on how to determine what non-cooperation is. The guidelines are currently being reviewed by experts, lawyers and others.