Nearly half of Chinese asylum-seekers disappear from reception centres

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More than 40 percent of asylum applications of Chinese citizens during the past three years have either been cancelled, or the would-be refugees have disappeared before a decision on their application has been made. The group includes a number of children arriving alone in Finland.
      Jaakko Sonck of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) says that some of them may have been brought into Finland illegally, and that there may be victims of human trafficking among them.
     
The Directorate of Immigration has handled the asylum applications of 83 Chinese between 2003 and 2005. In 35 cases, the applications lapsed after the applicant had disappeared.
      The proportion of applications taht lapse is exceptionally high among the Chinese. Among all asylum-seekers it is just 11 percent.
      Susanne Tengman of the Directorate of Immigration believes that in most of the cases, applicants have either disappeared from the reception centres, or have cancelled their applications. This group includes ten underage children who arrived in Finland without a parent or guardian.
      Seven such children disappeared from one reception centre in the same day - November 22nd, 2003, and three others disappeared earlier this year.
     
The NBI’s Jaakko Sonck says that the large number of lapsed applications suggests misuse of the asylum system. At the very least, he believes that organised illegal entry is involved.
      "It is most likely that there are also cases in which trafficking in humans might come into the picture. People can end up working at jobs that they did not want to apply for", he believes.
      Sonck also feels that Finland and the other Nordic Countries are used as mere transit points in the smuggling of illegal Chinese immigrants, whose final destination is generally some other country in the Schengen zone.
      Many of them end up in cities of Central and Southern Europe that have large Chinese communities.
      Some might also move on to the United States or Canada.
     
Sonck says that the phenomenon is familiar in all Nordic Countries. The most recent case involves the arrest of a Chinese couple in Stockholm, suspected of trying to smuggle four Chinese children under the age of 15 to Italy or France.
      Prosecutors say that the children were being taken to "horrifying conditions", and that the couple had planned to smuggle another 11 Chinese children later.
      There was no immediate connection between the Swedish case and Finland.
      According to Swedish sources, police and immigration officials in Sweden had found that the children were carrying about EUR 1,000, and a mobile phone SIM card had been sewed into their clothing. This would have allowed the children to buy a mobile phone to make calls for further travel instructions.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish citizen arrested in Latvia on suspicion of human trafficking (1.11.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat