The Head of the Office for Foreigners is responsible for the management of all the centres. This authority can delegate its responsibility for managing the centres to social organisations, associations, private owners, companies, etc.[1] Currently, 5 reception centres are managed by private contractors, while the remaining ones are directly managed by the Office for Foreigners.
The Office for Foreigners monitors the situation in the centres managed by private contractors daily through the Office’s employees working in those centres and through the overall inspections taking place a couple of times a year. In 2023, the five centres managed by private contractors were monitored 19 times. Medical establishments within the centres were monitored too – once every quarter. Once a year, centres were also controlled by firefighters and health authorities.[2]
Conditions in the centres managed by the Office for Foreigners are occasionally monitored by other authorities and entities as well, e.g. the UNHCR, or the Commissioner for Human Rights.
Asylum seekers can complain to the Office for Foreigners about the situation in the centres.[3] In 2023, 18 requests and 19 complaints concerning reception centres were lodged in the Office for Foreigners. They mostly concerned living conditions and staff working in the centres. None of the complaints were considered justified.[4]
The average length of stay of asylum seekers varied between the centres. While the stay in the first reception centres is designed to be short (in 2023, on average, 17 days in Biała Podlaska and 23 days in Podkowa Leśna-Dębak), asylum seekers stayed in accommodation centres, on average, from 42 days (Kolonia-Horbów) to 155 days (Łuków).[5]
Overall living conditions
Living conditions differ across the reception centres. In the centres managed by private contractors, ensuring certain minimum living conditions standards is obligatory based on agreements between these contractors and the Office for Foreigners. Thus, centres have to have furnished rooms for asylum applicants, a separate common room for men and women, a kindergarten, a space to practice religion, a recreational area, school rooms, and a specified number of refrigerators and washing machines. Other conditions are dependent on the willingness and financial capacities of the contractor. Most often, one family stays in one room, without separate bedrooms or a kitchen. Moreover, usually, the centres do not offer separate bathrooms and kitchens, only the common ones.[6] Persons travelling without their families may be accommodated with other single asylum seekers unknown to them.[7]
None of the centres was built to serve as a reception centre for asylum seekers. Most of them were used for different purposes before, such as army barracks, hostels for workers or holiday resorts.[8]
In general, conditions in the reception centres are considered to be better now than in the past. It results from greater attention given to the living conditions when a contractor for running a centre is being chosen and the renovations conducted in recent years in the centres that are managed by the Office for Foreigners. Despite that, some asylum seekers complain about those conditions, mentioning for instance bed bugs in the rooms. [9] According to the NGOs, asylum seekers generally assess the conditions in the centres as rather low.[10] For example, as recorded in 2023 by Fundacja EMIC, one Afghan national stated that:
“The first time we went to Biała Podlaska. Then we were transported to a centre in Bezwola in the Lublin Voivodeship. We spent 2 months there. This centre was in the middle of the forest. Everywhere was far away. There were no shops, no schools. One of my sisters had to go to school, but there was no facility for her in the area. The Grupa was better in this respect, but the conditions were still difficult overall. The biggest problem were bugs – bedbugs. Employees tried to fight them off, but they kept coming back. Sprays and medical supplies didn’t work. It was the worst. Living conditions were not good either. We got two rooms for six people. There was a doctor, there was also a nurse. Food? Not very good.”[11]
Meanwhile, the Office for Foreigners’ anonymous survey conducted in 2023 in 4 reception centres managed by the Office (259 out of 372 asylum seekers living in the centres took part in the survey) showed that asylum seekers living there were overall satisfied with the material reception conditions they received (with a general satisfaction rate of 90.05%). Moreover, in 2023, the centres in Linin and Podkowa Leśna-Dębak, were renovated. [12]
Protests or hunger strikes occasionally happen in the reception centres. In January 2022, one hunger strike was reported in the centre in Grupa. According to the Office for Foreigners, Afghan nationals protested about the food they were served in the centre, the meagre number of NGOs working in the centre, and the low quality of the support they received from the NGO operating there. They were also afraid of how their life will look like when they will leave the centre. In 2023, however, no protests and hunger strikes took place in the reception centres.[13]
In every centre, there are two kinds of staff: employees of the Office for Foreigners and other employees (as kitchen aids, cleaners etc.). As of December 2023, there were 26 employees of the Office for Foreigners working directly with the asylum seekers in all the centres and other workers (in total, 60 persons).[14] Staff in the centre is working from Monday to Friday from 7:00 to 18:00. They are mainly responsible for the administration of the centre, not for social work with asylum seekers. The number of employees of the Office for Foreigners and the scope of their responsibilities are considered insufficient.[15] At night and on weekends only guards are present in the centre. Security staff is available in all centres around the clock.
Activities in the centres
Polish language courses are organised in all reception centres, both for children and adults. Those courses are considered the only integration activity provided by the Office for Foreigners.[16] See more in Access to Education.
In 2023, NGOs carried out some projects in the centres which aimed at providing:
- Legal assistance – provided in the reception centres, in the NGOs’ premises and remotely;
- Pre-integration activities, which were mostly aimed at children and young people (both education and leisure). Some activities were also addressed to adults, including Polish classes, employment counselling and psychological counselling.[17]
Five centres have libraries and all centres have internet access.[18]
In all centres, there is a special room designed for religious practices. If asylum seekers want to participate in religious services outside of the centre, they have such a right, although in practice the remoteness from the closest place of worship can prevent them from participating in such services.
[1] Article 79(2) Law on Protection.
[2] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[3] Para 17 of the Annex to the Regulation on rules of stay in the centre for asylum seekers.
[4] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[5] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[6] W. Goszczyński, R. Baczyński-Sielaczek, J. Suchomska, J. Stankowska and M. Wróblewski. ‘Lokalne systemy integracji uchodźców – badania’ in Fundacja EMIC and Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, Wielogłos. Integracja uchodźców w polskich gminach, 2016, avaialble (in Polish) at: https://bit.ly/31uBLiE, 63, 67.
[7] A. Garbolińska, ‘Rodzaje ośrodków dla osób w procedurze uchodźczej w Polsce’, 2022, available in Polish here: https://bit.ly/3ziK8zR.
[8] See Lukasiewicz, K., ‘Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland’, International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017, 61.
[9] M. Pachocka, K. Pędziwiatr, K. Sobczak-Szelc, J. Szałańska, ‘Reception Policies, Practices and Responses: Poland Country Report’, 2020, RESPOND Working Papers 2020/45, available at: http://bit.ly/3jLCvsV, 43-45, 60-61.
[10] See i.a. W. Goszczyński, R. Baczyński-Sielaczek, J. Suchomska, J. Stankowska and M. Wróblewski. ‘Lokalne systemy integracji uchodźców – badania’ in Fundacja EMIC and Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, Wielogłos. Integracja uchodźców w polskich gminach (2016), avaialble (in Polish) at: https://bit.ly/31uBLiE, 64.
[11] Fundacja EMIC, ‘Życie Afganek i Afgańczyków w Polsce po dwóch latach od ewakuacji nadal jest bardzo trudne’, 15 September 2023, available in Polish here: https://bit.ly/4aXdIf9.
[12] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[13] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 3 February 2023 and 16 February 2024.
[14] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[15] See also SIP, ‘Raport nt. przeciwdziałania przemocy wobec kobiet i przemocy domowej’, 16 September 2021, available in Polish at: https://bit.ly/3tyl04y, mentioning that employees in the reception centres are not social workers and they are not prepared to work with vulnerable persons such as victims of domestic violence. See also M. Pachocka, K. Pędziwiatr, K. Sobczak-Szelc, J. Szałańska ‘Reception Policies, Practices and Responses: Poland Country Report’, 2020, RESPOND Working Papers 2020/45, available at: http://bit.ly/3jLCvsV, 64-65.
[16] W. Goszczyński, R. Baczyński-Sielaczek, J. Suchomska, J. Stankowska and M. Wróblewski. ‘Lokalne systemy integracji uchodźców – badania’ in Fundacja EMIC and Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, Wielogłos. Integracja uchodźców w polskich gminach, 2016, avaialble (in Polish) at: https://bit.ly/31uBLiE, 69.
[17] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.
[18] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 16 February 2024.