Accommodation for asylum seekers

Currently there are the following centres:

• the first unit of the Ljubljana asylum centre
• the second unit of the Ljubljana asylum centre
• the Logatec asylum centre

The asylum centre consists of six departments: for families, for single men, for unaccompanied minors, for single women, for people with special needs and a restricted movement section that is currently not in use. In total it can accommodate 203 people. There are also two integration houses, in Ljubljana and Maribor, which offer accommodation to approximately 60 people with recognized international protection.¹

All centres are accommodations of the open type, which means that people can enter and exit freely, except in cases specified by law or by the House Rules of each centre. However, officials who examine the asylum application must be able to reach the candidate.

When a person is accommodated in an asylum centre, his/her individual circumstances will be taken into account.

• Families are accommodated together.
• Women who are alone and unaccompanied minors are placed separately.

Needs of vulnerable persons, including their accommodation within the centre, are addressed separately. If a person has such particular needs, it is advisable to tell this to officials in charge of the asylum application, authorities in the asylum centre or persons who can provide psychosocial support. The following persons are considered member of a vulnerable group.

• person with disability or with chronic and severe illness
• pregnant woman
• older person
• single parent with underage children
• victim of trafficking in human beings, torture, female genital mutilation
• victim of physical, sexual and psychological violence

For these people, the ministry arranges appropriate accommodation at on the basis of the opinion of a committee composed of representatives of the ministry and experts from the center of social work and from local communities, according to their specific needs. The extension of duration of their accommodation depends on the opinion of the committee.

In the asylum centre, the refugee’s basic material needs will be satisfied: food, clothes and hygienic accessories. Insofar as the diet is organized, a diet can be provided, according to the religious belief of refugees. The person will receive a small amount of pocket money (18 Euros). Basic health care services and recreational, educational (language courses) and occupational activities are also available. Psychosocial and legal help and support is provided by various organizations active in the centres.²

The asylum centre hosts various daily activities, such as: Slovenian and English language courses, sports activities, creative workshops for children and adults, excursions and visits to interesting places around Slovenia, computer courses, photographic courses, editing of the internal newspaper The Voice of Asylum. They are conducted by the psychosocial service of the asylum centre and various nongovernmental organizations.

The accommodation in the asylum centre will last until the asylum application is resolved. In Slovenia, the process should take 6 months maximum, but in reality, there are big differences between cases. It can vary from one or two months for those who are relocated and even more than 2 years in some other cases.

In special circumstances (for example, if a person has health problems), people are allowed to live outside the asylum centre as an asylum seeker. In such cases, one must apply at the Government Office for the Support and Integration of Migrants after spending one month in the asylum centre.

People who do not apply for asylum will be accommodated in the Centre for foreigners (Center za tujce) in Postojna (50 km out of Ljubljana). This is an accommodation of the closed type, which means you cannot leave. You can stay there for a maximum of one year (in practice it can take even longer). If you do not apply for international protection, you can be deported.