AT THE BORDERS

 In 2019 KlikAktiv conducted an independent project with the aim to provide legal and social support for people on the move in Serbia. For the purpose of this project, we gathered a team of a lawyer, social worker, field worker and interpreters, all with previous experience in migrations and asylum system in Serbia.

This project was placed on two pillars, one - which was to monitor the EU external borders and to collect testimonies about push-backs and violence inflicted by police or border guards at the external EU borders. And second, we wanted to provide refugees with basic information and legal/social counseling related to their rights, obligation but also to present them the basic principles and steps in asylum procedure.

With the help of our friends in borderline-europe we secured the funds for the continuation of our activities in following years as well. Besides the legal and social counseling we also collect testimonies on violent push-backs from EU borders and we fight against the criminalization of solidarity.

We are located in Belgrade where we provide help to the people on the move who are sleeping rough in local squats or in local camps but we are also regularly visiting the border areas. Our visits to the border are are adjusted to the changing needs, but currently we are present in more than 20 squats on the north borders. At these places we collect testimonies of people who have been pushed back by the Croatian, Hungarian and Romanian authorities back into Serbia. During push-backs EU police officers often use force, including beating, kicking, releasing police dogs, slapping or firing guns in the air as a way of intimidation. We are witnesses of broken bones, cuts and severe bruising all as a consequence of violent push-backs.

Our goal is to reach those that are undeserved and that don’t have access to legal or social services in Serbia. We wanted to help those who do not have access to Serbian asylum system, who are sleeping rough in informal squats or in transit camps. For this reason, vast majority of our beneficiaries are single men and unaccompanied minors. However, since beggining of 2022 the number of families and single women has increased as well. For almost all of them this is the first time they had access to free legal help.

Within the legal advising our goal is not to provide them with just basic information, instead we also want them to understand how the asylum system works, what it means to be a refugee, forms of international protection, steps in asylum procedure as well as their rights and obligations in asylum procedures. We provided both group and individual legal advising sessions. Legal counseling was also organized in squats at the border area as well as in Belgrade.

One of our main goals is also to affect the national asylum system and improve it for refugees who are residing in Serbia. We are accomplishing this through different integration activities and strategic litigation. The most relevant strategic litigation is definitely the request for a citizenship for a refugee - a first such request ever made in Serbia. KlikAktiv submitted a citizenship request for a 34-year old man who was granted a refugee status 6 years ago. He was previously rejected by other free legal providers before KlikAktiv took up his case. This case is still pending.

You can read more about our activities in our Report or in stories within the Journal.