SERBIA
LEGAL AND POLICY CONTEXT
In 2015 Serbia became one of the main transit
countries for refugees and migrants taking
the Western Balkan route to Western Europe.
Authorities and humanitarian organisations
provided emergency and humanitarian assis-
tance. In 2016, after strict border controls were
introduced and the route was officially closed,
many people were stranded in Serbia, becoming
increasingly hopeless. The authorities opened
reception facilities throughout the country,
mainly in remote areas and close to the borders,
in order to provide basic accommodation and
services. Nevertheless, at the end of 2016 and
the beginning of 2017 there were reports of peo-
ple living in dire conditions in makeshift camps
in Belgrade instead of staying in reception
centres due to fears of deprivation of liberty and
deportation 1 . According to UN Refugee Agency
(UNHCR) data from 15 October 2017, out of
4,275 newly arrived refugees, asylum seekers
and migrants who were counted in Serbia, 3,855
were housed in 18 state-run centres 2 .
Asylum Act provides for the provision of special
care to vulnerable asylum seekers, including
children, during the asylum procedure.
However, this does not refer to accommodation
and reception conditions 3 .
A lack of space, shortages of professional staff
and the reliance on donations and assistance
from non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
create challenges in providing suitable care to
vulnerable groups 4 . Although some families
may receive better treatment than others, living
conditions often remains inadequate.
In asylum and reception centres, where most
unaccompanied children are hosted, separation
between unaccompanied children and unre-
lated adults is not guaranteed in practice. In
addition, accommodation centres for children
in Belgrade and Niš, which are also home to
vulnerable local children and juvenile offenders,
only have the capacity to accommodate 31
unaccompanied children. Although juvenile
offenders and other children are kept separate
within the centres, there are frequent conflict
situations among children. Furthermore, due
to a lack of interpreters for the languages that
refugee and migrant children can understand,
care is limited to meeting basic needs 5 .
There are two main challenges regarding the
guardianship of unaccompanied children in
Serbia. Firstly, guardians are responsible for
large numbers of unaccompanied children at
the sam e time (around 50–200 children per
guardian in 2017), so they are unable to perform
their duties effectively. Secondly, between the
time they enter the country and the end of the
asylum procedure, unaccompanied children are
assigned several temporary guardians, which
affects the continuity of care and makes it
difficult to build trust 6 .
1 _ Asylum Information Database (AIDA) Country Report: Serbia, 2016 Update (3 April 2017),
http://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/serbia.
2 _ UNHCR, Serbia Update 9-15 October 2017, (17 October 2017), https://reliefweb.int/report/serbia/unhcr-serbia-update-09-15-october-2017.
3 _ AIDA, Ibid.
4 _ Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Unaccompanied and Separated Children in Serbia (2017), 24-25.
http://www.asylumineurope.org/sites/default/files/resources/unaccompanied_and_separated_children_in_serbia.pdf.
5 _ Ibid.
6 _ Ibid., 22.
93