contents
Two young women – refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan – gave the politicians in the arena an impressive demonstration of their everyday life in Switzerland. The focus was on the question of why refugees have different rights in this country.
17-year-old Solomiia Fedorchuk from Ukraine and 18-year-old Shakila Ansari from Afghanistan both fled to Switzerland to escape the war in their homeland. Although the young women share a similar fate, they do not have the same rights here.
Because refugees from the Ukraine receive the protection status S. Shakila Ansari, on the other hand, has the so-called F permit. This differs in essential points from the protection status S.
Fedorchuk has been in Switzerland since the beginning of March, as she told the “Arena”. From Kyiv she came to Bern, where she now lives with friends of her family and attends high school. “In a way, I’m living the ordinary everyday life of a teenager.”
But her thoughts are in Ukraine. Her parents and her brothers are still there. It’s a very distressing situation. But she was well received here. She gets a lot of support from her classmates.
Difficult apprenticeship search and travel ban
Shakila Ansari described a different experience on the show. Ansari has had a true odyssey: she fled from Afghanistan via Iran, Greece and Italy to Switzerland. At that time she was 16 years old. It was a long process before she finally received the F permit.
Ansari attends the cantonal school for vocational training in Aarau and would like to start an apprenticeship as an optician. But finding an apprenticeship is proving difficult. “Employers often don’t understand what ‘provisionally accepted’ means.” This status F is too uncertain for many.
This unequal treatment of refugees is unfair.
In addition to other obstacles in everyday life, Ansari misses her family above all. Unlike refugees from Ukraine with protection status S, refugees with an F permit are generally not allowed to travel and family reunification is only possible after three years.
Ansari sees this unequal treatment as “unfair”. There was also a war in their country, and bombs were falling there too. “Refugees are refugees, no matter where they come from.”
Equal rights for all refugees?
The question as to whether and why different rights and obligations should apply to refugees from war zones was answered very differently by the guests on the show.
“We cannot accept everyone who comes from a war zone unbureaucratically,” objected SVP National Councilor Barbara Steinemann. That is simply not realistic. In addition, the protection status S is return-oriented. In other words, the people who fled Ukraine would return to their country in due course. This is different for people whose status is clarified individually.
The assessment of Balthasar Glättli, Green President, is different: “Anyone seeking protection should receive it under the same conditions in Switzerland.” It is therefore clear to Glättli that all refugees will be offered the same opportunities and perspectives if there is no possibility of returning safely to their home country.
Throwing the proven asylum policy overboard is extremely dangerous.
With this demand, the welfare state would be massively expanded, warned the Aargau FDP councilor Adrian Schoop. Not every refugee is a real refugee. There are clear rules for this in asylum policy. “To throw this asylum policy, which has proven itself over the years, overboard due to emotions is extremely dangerous.” Instead, a long-term solution is needed.
If the political will is there, a dignified refugee policy is possible.
“We have a strong economy and a humanitarian tradition,” said Basel SP Councilor Edibe Gölgeli. The capacities and resources to take in people in need of protection are available in Switzerland. The admission of around 50,000 refugees from the Ukraine has shown that a dignified refugee policy is possible, according to the councilor from the canton of Basel-Stadt. “The political will has to be there.”