Author
Lawyers always have access to their client in detention.[1] Access is granted to UNHCR, the Children’s Rights Commissioner, Myria and some supranational human rights institutions.[2] In 2024, a Preventive Mechanism against torture has been set up in the context of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.[3] Situated within the Federal Institute for the protection and promotion of Human Rights (FIRM-IFDH), and in collaboration with the Central Prison Monitoring Council (CTRG-CCSP), the Federal Migration Centre (Myria) and the Standing Police Monitoring Committee (Committee P), the mission of the Preventive Mechanism is to monitor places of deprivation of liberty, including administrative detention centres. The Preventive Mechanism conducts regular visits to detention facilities, assesses the individual situations of persons deprived of their liberty, and carries out research on issues relevant to the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, such as mental health in detention. Based on its findings, it formulates recommendations to the competent authorities and provides opinions on legislation and legislative proposals. A first visit to an administrative detention centre – 127bis – took place in October 2025, and the corresponding report is currently being finalised. The Federal Migration Centre Myria, which is responsible for visits to administrative detention centres, notes with concern that the resources allocated to the monitoring bodies remain insufficient to enable them to carry out this new mandate effectively.[4]
NGOs need to get the approval from the Immigration Office’s managing director, in the form of ‘accreditations’, to get access to the administrative detention centres.[5] In 2021, 4 NGOs (Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, JRS Belgium, Caritas International Belgium and Ciré) founded the ‘Move coalition’ to work on topics related to administrative detention of migrants. The Move coalition has received accreditations to visit each of the administrative detention centres on a weekly basis. The coalition’s goals are pursued in collaboration with other NGOs working in the field of migration, such as NANSEN or Point d’Appui. The members of Move build on almost 20 years of experience in the field of immigration detention and possess vast expertise in the four specific pillars of the coalition:
- visits and monitoring of administrative detention centres, in order to provide psychosocial support, neutral information and legal aid to detainees. The visitors observe the conditions in the centres;
- quality legal expertise offered to visitors and other legal practitioners, in order to increase access to legal defence for the detainees;
- field observations and recommendations for concrete changes are carried out under the political pillar; to better pursue its objectives, the coalition also maintains close contact with politicians;
- media and communication, working towards fundamentally questioning detention for migratory reasons in the public space.
Members of Parliament and of the judicial and executive powers can visit specific detainees if they are identified beforehand and if they can indicate to the managing director of the centre that such a visit is part of the execution of their office.[6] Journalists need the permission of the managing director of the centre and the permission of the individual asylum applicant; they are not allowed to film.[7]
Asylum applicants are entitled to visits from their direct relatives and family members for at least 1 hour a day, if they can provide a proof of their relation.[8] So called intimate visits from a person with whom the asylum applicant has a proven durable relation are allowed once a month for 2 hours.[9] All visits, except for the so called ‘undisturbed’ (intimate) ones, in case of serious illness and those by the lawyer, diplomats or representatives of public authorities, take place in the visitors’ room in the ‘discreet’ presence of staff members, who are present in the room but do not listen.[10]
[1] Article 64 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[2] Article 44 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[3] https://www.foderalesinstitutmenschenrechte.be/en/preventive-mechanism-against-torture
[4] Myria, 2025: Return, detention and removal – Belgium is establishing a National Mechanism for the Prevention of Ill-Treatment in (some) places of detention, available in French here, p. 53.
[5] Article 45 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[6] Articles 33, 42 and 43 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[7] Articles 37 and 40 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[8] Article 34 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[9] Article 36 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.
[10] Articles 29-30 Royal Decree on Closed Centres.