Author
The law enumerates as vulnerable persons: minors, unaccompanied minors, disabled people, elderly people, pregnant women, single parents with minor children, victims of human trafficking, persons with serious illnesses, persons with mental disorders and persons who have been subjected to torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, such as victims of female genital mutilation.[1] This is a non-exhaustive list, but no other definition of vulnerability is available.
Detection of vulnerabilities
On the moment of registration of the asylum application, the Immigration Office registers the elements that indicate a specific vulnerability that has become apparent on the moment of the registration of the asylum application (e.g. indication of (unaccompanied) minor, + 65 years old, pregnant, single woman, LGBTI, victim of trafficking, victim of violence (physical, sexual, psychological), has children, or has medical or affected by psychological issues (for more information see Guarantees for vulnerable groups) in the administrative file of the applicant. At the Dispatching Desk of Fedasil, the specific situation of the asylum applicant (family situation, age, health, medical condition) should be taken into consideration before assignment to a reception centre, since some are more adapted to specific needs than others.
After the Dispatching Desk receives this information, they categorise the asylum applicants to assign the right reception place and in accordance with reception needs. To that end, they differentiate two categories of special reception needs: medical problems – which are of importance to determine the right reception place (e.g., handicap, psychological problems, pregnancy) – and vulnerable women, for whom a collective centre is not a well-adapted place. Asylum applicants who do not fit these two categories are in general assumed to be able to be accommodated in collective centres. In practice, the categories of the Immigration Office and the Dispatching desk do not match completely, which is why most asylum applicants are assigned to a collective centre. Only in a few cases, mostly related to serious health problems, will they be directly assigned to individual housing provided by NGOs or LRI.
In fact, the evaluation of dispatching mostly focuses on medical grounds. A medical worker of the Dispatching desk meets personally with the asylum applicant if the Immigration Office has mentioned that the person showed signs of vulnerability during the registration, if the workers of the dispatching desk notice a medical problem themselves, or if an external organisation draws attention to the specific reception needs of an asylum applicant. In addition, Fedasil’s medical staff conducts a medical screening of every newly arrived asylum applicant in order to find an adapted reception centre.[2] The obtained medical information is then forwarded to the assigned reception centre. Regarding other vulnerabilities, they are mostly identified by social workers in the reception centres.
A legal mechanism is put in place to assess specific needs of vulnerable persons once they are allocated in the reception facilities. Within 30 calendar days after having been assigned a reception place, the individual situation of the asylum applicant should be examined to determine if the accommodation is adapted to their personal needs. Particular attention must be paid to signs of vulnerability that are not immediately detectable.[3] A Royal Decree has formalised this evaluation procedure, requiring an interview with a social assistant, followed by a written evaluation report within 30 days, which has to be continuously and permanently updated, and should lead to a conclusion within a maximum of 6 months. The evaluation should contain a conclusion on the adequacy of the accommodation to the individual medical, social and psychological needs, with a recommendation as to appropriate measures to be taken, if any.[4] A finding of vulnerability may lead to a transfer to more adequate accommodation, if necessary. In practice however, a transfer is often impossible due to insufficient specialised places or political preferences for a collective rather than individual accommodation model. The evaluation mechanism is often insufficiently implemented, if at all, and rarely leads to a transfer to a more adapted place.[5] Since May 2018, Fedasil issued two instructions about transfers, but due to the current shortage of places, the application of these instructions remains strict.
Fedasil cooperates with GAMS, an organisation that is specialised in prevention against and support in case of female genital mutilation (FGM). In the framework of the project FGM Global Approach, funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, they set up a process in the reception centres for early detection of FGM and social, psychological and medical support, and for the protection of girls who are at risk of FGM. In each collective Fedasil centre there is a reference person trained by this organisation. Each social assistant and the medical service of the centre need to conduct the identification within the first 30 days after the person’s arrival in the centre. A checklist was created to guide the personnel of the centre through each step of the process. Each victim of FGM should be informed of this but can choose to take part in it or not. These guidelines were created both for collective reception centres and for individual shelters.[6]
Specific and adapted places
There are a number of specialised centres or specific individual accommodation facilities for:
- Unaccompanied minors;
- Pregnant minors;
- Vulnerable single women with or without young children;
- Young single women with children;
- Minors with behavioural problems (time-out);
- Persons with psychological problems;
- Victims of trafficking (although these places are not managed by Fedasil);
- Refugees who were resettled;
- Vulnerable persons who received refugee status or subsidiary protection and who are experiencing problems (linked to their vulnerability) with finding their own house and leaving the shelter.
By the end of 2025, there were 13 reception places specifically aimed at the reception of LGBTI+ applicants.[7] Other LGBTI+ applicants are housed in the general reception network, either in collective centres or in individual places, according to the needs and places available. Most centres don’t have separate rooms available. In certain centres, personnel searches ad hoc for a solution, such as accommodating the person in a medical room. LGBTI+ applicants who are considered as extra vulnerable by the dispatching service of Fedasil (such as trans persons) are assigned a place in an LRI if such a place is available.[8] Fedasil is funding several projects aiming to provide training and sensibilisation about this topic to residents and personnel of reception centres.[9]
Reception of unaccompanied children
The reception of unaccompanied children[10] follows three phases:[11]
- Observation and Orientation Centres: Unaccompanied children should in principle first be accommodated in specialised reception facilities: Observation and Orientation Centres (OOC). While in these centres, a decision should be made on which reception facility is most adapted to the specific child’s needs.[12] At the end of 2025, there were 341 places in OOCs.[13]
- Specific places in reception centres: After the observation and orientation phase, unaccompanied minors are accommodated in specialised centres or individual reception places. At the end of 2025, there was a total of 2,790 special places for unaccompanied minors in the reception network (1,983 in collective centres and 398 individual places).[14]
- Individual accommodation: Once a child – that is at least 15 years old and who is sufficiently mature – receives a positive decision, a transfer can be made to a specialised individual place. They will then have 6 months to prepare for living independently and to look for their own place. This stay can be prolonged until the child reaches the age of 18.
The centre in Rixensart has 50 specific places for unaccompanied minor girls, underage pregnant girls or young mothers with their baby.[15]
Children with behavioural problems or minors who need some time away from their reception place can be temporarily transferred to ‘time-out’ places.
On 20 December 2025, the occupancy rate of the special places for unaccompanied minors was 75,3%.[16]
Reception of families
Families with children are as much as possible housed in a family room in the reception centre, guaranteeing more privacy.
Since 2023, Fedasil has been opening temporary shelters in youth centres and tourist accommodation facilities during the winter months to prevent capacity shortages for families with children. For the winter of 2025–2026, the Agency was required to make 863 such additional places available. In 2025 – 2026 capacity remained insufficient despite this measure. Therefore, the Agency opened 8 ‘emergency shelters’ (NOC’s) in budget hotels amounting to 833 places. In January 2026, Fedasil closed the last of these NOC’s. This is mostly because the government perceived this type of accommodation as a pull factor towards Belgium.[17] On 13 March 2026, Fedasil announced that it would close all temporary places in the youth organisations.[18]
Fedasil also must ensure the reception of families with children without legal stay when the parents cannot guarantee their basic needs.[19] In practice, these families are sheltered in ‘return houses’ managed by the Immigration Office. Because the focus in these shelters is on return, not many families use this possibility of accommodation based on the Royal Decree of 24 June 2014.
Reception of victims of trafficking and persons affected by traumatic experiences
In Wallonia, there is a specialised Red Cross reception centre (Centre d’accueil rapproché pour demandeurs d’asile en souffrance mentale, CARDA) for traumatised asylum applicants with 40 places. In Flanders, there is a centre for the intensive assistance of asylum applicants with psychological and/or mild psychiatric problems (Centrum voor Intensieve Begeleiding van Asielzoekers – CIBA) that provides for an intensive trajectory of maximum 3 months and has 27 places (including 5 for unaccompanied minors and 5 for intensive day care). Neither CIBA nor CARDA have a waiting list in April 2026.[20] There are also specialised centres such as Payoke, Pagasa, Surya, which are external to the Fedasil-run reception network, for victims of trafficking. Finally, it is possible to refer people to more specialised institutions such as retirement homes or psychiatric institutions outside the reception network.
For persons with severe psychiatric problems, there are no adapted places within the reception network and insufficient places in specialised care outside of the reception network. Therefore, these applicants usually stay in a normal place or ‘medical place’, that is not adapted to their needs.[21]
Reception of persons with medical conditions
Specialised medical reception places or specific medical individual accommodation initiatives can be assigned to:
- Persons with limited mobility, for example when they are in wheelchairs;
- Persons who are unable to take care of themselves (prepare food, hygiene, eat, take medication) without help;
- Persons with a mental or physical disability;
- Persons who receive medical help in a specific place for example dialysis, chemotherapy;
- Persons with a serious psychological dysfunction;
- Persons for whom it is necessary to have adapted conditions of reception due to medical reasons, such as special diet, a private toilet, and a private room.
At the end of 2025, 231 medical places were available in collective reception centres, and 174 in individual reception places (10 ‘high care’ places managed by Ciré and 116 individual places managed by other partners). At the end of 2023, a reception centre opened in Grimbergen specifically aimed at persons with medical conditions. Due to the reception crisis, the centre is also housing other persons, so not all medical places there are optimally used. All medical places in this centre are maximally occupied.
The number of medical places is insufficient to assign every person with special medical needs to an adapted reception place. Given that one room sometimes covers several medical places used by family members of the person with medical issues or that one person occupies a room with several medical places, not all specialised medical places are effectively available for people with medical needs. Fedasil indicates that there is an increase of persons with serious mental health issues who need to be housed in a room with maximum 2-3 other residents, rather than 4-6. This can result in a loss of medical places. Due to the shortage of adapted medical places, certain persons with special medical needs are accommodated in normal collective or individual places.[22]
[1] Article 36(1) Reception Act.
[2] Information provided by Fedasil, February 2018.
[3] Article 22 Reception Act.
[4] Royal Decree of 25 April 2007 on the modalities of the assessment of the individual situation of the reception beneficiary.
[5] Court of Auditors, Opvang van asielzoekers, October 2017, 63.
[6] Fedasil, Note on the FGM trajectory in the framework of the GAMS project, steps and tasks for implementation within the federal centre, 20 September 2017; GAMS, Traject VGV, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/2VGZTe7
[7] Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[8] Information provided by Çavaria, an interest group for LGBTI+, March 2025 (https://www.cavaria.be/).
[9] Çavaria, ‘Safer spaces for LGBTI+ asylum seekers’, available here (last consulted on 3 April 2025); Prisme, ‘Safe space for LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers’, available here (last consulted on 3 April 2025).
[10] Fedasil, Your rights and obligations as an unaccompanied minor, 2026, available in English here.
[11] See more information here.
[12] Article 41 Reception Act; Royal Decree of 9 April 2007 on the centres for the orientation and observation of unaccompanied minors.
[13] I Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[14] Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[15] Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[16] Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[17] The Brussels Times, ‘Brussels’ last remaining asylum seeker hotel closes’, 18 January 2026, available here.
[18] Fedasil, ‘Closure of the winter reception places’, 13 March 2026, available in Dutch here.
[19] Article 60 Reception Act and Royal Decree of 24 June 2014, about the conditions and modalities for reception of minors who reside in Belgium illegally with their families.
[20] Information provided by Fedasil, April 2026.
[21] Information provided by Fedasil, March 2025.
[22] Information provided by Fedasil, March 2026.