The Asylum Procedure in Germany: Desperation and Uncertainty as Risk Factors for Violence Among Young Adult Asylum Seekers in Collective Accommodations

Abstract

This study explores how violence occurs among young adult asylum seekers in collective accommodations in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It provides an insider perspective to understand a phenomenon related to non-European people who were forced to leave their countries to seek asylum. Based on 16 qualitative interviews with young adult male asylum seekers from Syria and some African countries, seven interviews with social workers, and one interview with a German psychological therapist, the author finds that the asylum procedure in Germany as a total institution catalyzes violence among young adult asylum seekers in collective accommodations. The present study shows that collective accommodations are unhomely places, where “inmates” lack privacy and autonomy. In addition, the asylum procedure deprives them of essential human needs, such as the right to work and to have full access to the health care system. These circumstances make them uncertain and desperate, which leads to violence among them. The author calls for more attention towards the human needs of asylum seekers, rather than making them related to the granting of asylum, which can ultimately take years.

Keywords

young adult asylum seekers asylum procedure violence collective accommodations Germany

Introduction

Young adult asylum seekers are the biggest asylum seeker group in Germany. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, called Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) in German, the total number of asylum applications in 2016 was 722,370 and almost three-quarters of them (532,799 people [73.8%]) were younger than 30 years of age (BAMF, 2016). The asylum procedure that every asylum seeker in Germany is subject to, partly explained on the BAMF website, is characterized by strict rules. When an asylum seeker arrives in Germany, s/he should go to the nearest collective accommodation center, also known as Zentrale Unterbringungseinrichtung (ZUE). However, arriving at this center does not mean one can directly apply for asylum because the initiation of the asylum procedure requires the submission of a formal application and this takes an unknown period of time. BAMF distinguishes between asylum seekers and asylum applicants. Asylum seekers are those who have not yet been registered by the Federal Office as asylum applicants.

An asylum seeker should theoretically stay no longer than six months in the registration centers (ZUE), but in practice the period is much longer, especially for people with little prospect of getting asylum in Germany, such as individuals from “safe countries of origin”. According to the German law, countries are defined as safe countries of origin

if it is possible to prove on the basis of the democratic system and of the general political situation that no state persecution is to be feared there as a rule, and that the State in question can provide protection against non-state persecution as a matter of principle. (Bundestag, 2017)

An asylum applicant whose asylum application is rejected has the right to appeal the decision. Therefore, many appoint lawyers in order to prevent being sent back to their origin countries and this might prolong the asylum case for years. In addition, the asylum case takes much longer for asylum applicants who cannot or do not want to prove their nationality by providing the court with a national identity card or passport from their origin country. For instance, in this study, a young asylum seeker who had asked for asylum six years before without proving his nationality was interviewed. Yet he cannot be deported because he does not have documents from his home country.

Inside the collective accommodation centers (ZUE), hundreds of people from different countries are forced to live together and in some cases more than four people from different backgrounds have to live in the same room. At this stage of the asylum procedure, asylum seekers receive only “pocket money”. In addition, they cannot cook their own food until after they are registered as asylum applicants and sent to the camps or shared apartments.

The region of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the study was conducted, is the most populous region in all of Germany with about 18 million inhabitants, which means that this region receives the highest number of asylum seekers because of the German distribution system for asylum seekers (Königsteiner Schlüssel). Nevertheless, North Rhine-Westphalia is also one of the poorer regions in Germany. These factors make this region interesting when looking at asylum seekers and the living conditions they face upon arrival. Further, over the last few years, there have been news, discussions, and reports by nongovernmental organizations reporting inhumane conditions of housing facilities for asylum seekers in this region, such as a complete lack of privacy, space, and facilities due to overcrowding (Heeke, 2017). In Dortmund, for instance, asylum seekers and NGOs criticized the reception conditions of 300 emergency accommodation units that were established in gyms. Reasons for criticism included a lack of privacy and leisure activities, the low quality of food provided, insufficient hygiene standards, the absence of translation services, and insufficient support through the city’s social department (Rose, 2016).

Young adult asylum seekers are one of the most vulnerable asylum seeker groups. They struggle with the same problems such as trauma that asylum seekers usually face resulting from fleeing persecution in one’s home country. This means that they have to overcome the difficulties that trauma creates, such as lack of sleep, lack of appetite, and nightmares. In addition, in most cases, they are alone in Germany without their families to support them. Families are often given the right to live in an apartment, and children and minors are allowed to enroll in the German education system regardless of the asylum application result. In contrast, during the waiting time of the asylum application, young adult asylum seekers are forced to live together in male-only confined places, without privacy or autonomy. In addition, they do not have the right to work, rent a private dwelling, and enroll in a language school to learn the German language, and do not have full access to the health care system. Furthermore, they are not allowed to leave the area where their camp is located without permission. This is particularly the case for those who are considered, according to the German asylum law, to come from “safe countries”. However, those who have better prospects of staying in Germany as refugees sometimes have to stay in the collective accommodations or they are given the right to rent a flat, but this depends on the responsible clerk in the authority. Hence, the waiting period for the asylum decision can be classified as wasted time, due to the fact that asylum seekers in Germany generally cannot do anything useful for themselves or for the host society during this waiting time.

This study explored how the asylum procedure as a total institution contributes to violence among young adult asylum seekers. After reviewing the literature and explaining the methodological background of this study, the article shows that asylum seeker collective accommodations are unhomely places, lacking privacy and autonomy. In addition, it explains how the asylum procedure prevents them from essential needs, such as the right to work and to have full access to the health care system. Next, it shows how these circumstances make them feel uncertain and desperate, and how that leads to violence among each other. Lastly, it discusses how disagreements on maintaining the house rules are not the reasons for violence, rather they serve as triggers for violence.

Theoretical Background

The current study applies the concept “total institutions”, which is derived from the famous study called Asylums by Erving Goffman. In his study, he used the term “total institutions” for institutions such as prisons, boarding schools, mental hospitals, barracks, and monasteries. A total institution may be defined as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time and together lead an enclosed, formally administered life. People, also referred to as “inmates” in the total institutions, regularly sleep, eat, work, and play on the same premises in a process that might be described as “batch living”. Such institutions tend to encompass the lives of their inmates to a degree discontinuously greater than other social institutions, a discontinuity that is often built right into the physical plant through features such as high walls, barbed wire or moors (Goffman, 2017).

The main characteristic of the “total institution” is that it takes away the inmates’ ability to choose by forcing them into a deindividualized life, ending up with losing control of their lives. The current study argues that this feature is also present in the collective accommodations of asylum seekers since the asylum procedure as a “total institution” also enforces people to be under specific laws with specific implications, depriving them of a normal life as adult people. From this perspective, collective accommodations of the asylum seekers can be referred to as “total institutions”.

However, by classifying the shared accommodation of asylum seekers as “total institutions”, one should also take into account that young asylum seekers have more limitations in their lives compared to people who are forced to live in another kinds of “total institution”, such as a mental hospital. For asylum seekers, however, the right to work, learn the language, rent a private dwelling, and have full access to the health care system is related to being granted asylum.

In addition, the present study applies the concept “unhomely places” to describe the main features of the shared accommodations of asylum seekers. This concept is used by other researchers such as Grønseth et al. (2016) to show that although refugee and asylum seeker camps are usually safe places, they are not spaces where one can organize one’s life and perform activities with security. Another study used this concept to describe the lack of the autonomy in the asylum seeker accommodations; people who live there lack the ability to choose what they eat and how to prepare it. In addition, there is the lack of the possibility to uphold certain cultural traditions, guests have to leave at certain times in the evening, loud music is prohibited in the evenings, the cleaning duties are controlled by the staff, and pocket money is provided instead of a salary or welfare benefits. This child-like treatment takes away the privileges of adult life and the ability to lead one’s own life and is seen as “unhomely” (Van der Horst, 2004).

This study applies this concept to emphasize two main features of the asylum seeker collective accommodations. First, collective accommodations for asylum seekers isolate them from the host society because most of the time they are located outside residential areas, far away from the cities. In practice, that means that they have little possibility for social contact and to establish social networks, such as friendships and neighborhood contact with the locals. Second, asylum seeker collective accommodations lack the two basic characteristics of a home, namely privacy and autonomy. As inmates, they have to live together and sometimes many people from different social and cultural backgrounds have to share the same room. Inmates from several rooms have to share limited facilities, such as the kitchens, bathrooms, and washing machines. In addition, they have no autonomy, which means they do not have the ability to choose the rooms or the people who live with them. In the registration camps, they cannot even choose when and what they eat.

Literature Review

There are several studies that have been conducted on refugee and asylum seeker camps in Europe. In these studies, refugee and asylum seeker camps have been addressed as places of social exclusion. For instance, Turner (2016) shows that this space is politically developed for the purpose of separating the citizens and non-citizens. The nature of a camp is to separate populations and create a distinction between those inside and those outside the camp (Kreichauf, 2018). In Norway, asylum seeker reception centers are defined as part of migration politics and not as part of housing politics (Grønseth et al., 2016). The features of the accommodation centers contribute to the feeling that being an asylum seeker is associated with carrying a stigma. The accommodation centers unnecessarily isolate asylum seekers from the rest of society and from their own potential to rebuild their lives. This makes their future settlement more difficult and their continuing socioeconomic exclusion more likely (Szczepanikova, 2013). In the case of Germany, a working paper by Christ et al. (2017) mentions several triggers for conflicts between two persons or two groups of refugees, for example, the fact that different people from different backgrounds have to live together and consuming alcohol and drugs.

Studies also showed that spending extended periods of time in the refugee and asylum seeker accommodation centers results in different outcomes. For instance, it is much more difficult to move into private, rented accommodation and to find legal employment (Szczepanikova, 2013). In addition, a lengthy stay in asylum accommodation fosters a passive attitude, making integration a difficult task in the long run. They no longer feel in control over their own lives because their future prospects are in the hands of the institution or the state. It also has a negative effect on refugees’ mental health, which hampers their socioeconomic integration (Bakker et al., 2014). Mental disorders increase with the length of stay in asylum centers in large, multiethnic populations of asylum seekers (Hallas et al., 2007). Long stays in the accommodation centers lead to existential boredom which manifests in restlessness, fatigue, and despair (Vitus, 2010). The housing conditions and experiences of refugees play an important role in shaping their sense of security and belonging, and have a bearing on their access to health care, education, and employment (Phillips, 2006). Moreover, life in the camps influences the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into the job market. For instance, according to a study in Germany, half of the working refugees find their jobs through social contacts and there are no differences between refugees with higher and lower levels of education (Eisnecker & Schacht, 2016). In contrast, the asylum seekers become more independent, active, and more integrated when they are moved from an institutional center to ordinary housing units. Asylum seekers are empowered by living in decentralized housing, and this may strengthen their feelings of well-being (Hauge et al., 2017) .

Studies about refugee and asylum seeker camps in Europe have addressed them as places of social exclusion. In addition, the studies have identified many of their bad effects on the present and the future lives of the asylum seekers. Yet, so far, no scientific study has investigated how the asylum procedure in Germany generates violence among young adult asylum seekers in collective accommodations, a phenomenon that this study explores.

Methodology

This study was carried out in early 2019 in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is based on 24 qualitative interviews, 16 of which are with young adult male asylum seekers from Syria and some African countries. Due to the fact that the numbers of asylum seekers from different African countries in the visited accommodations is relatively low, this article refrains from mentioning their origin countries in order to protect their identity. All of them are single, between 18 and 35 years old, and, at the time of the interviews, were living in collective accommodations (camps or shared apartments) for periods ranging from one and a half years to six years. They are from different ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations. Seven interviews were with social workers and their work experience with refugees and asylum seekers was between two years to more than 20 years. Four of them were German and three were from Arabic countries. The author conducted one interview with a German psychological therapist and her work experience with asylum seekers and refugees was two and a half years. Respondents were recruited by visiting asylum seeker collective accommodations and using snowball sampling. The participants gave their consent before conducting the interviews and the author anonymized their names. All the interviews were conducted and transcribed by the author, either in Arabic, English or German. Thereby, the author brings in a perspective of a researcher from the Global South to a phenomenon related to non-European people who were forced to leave their countries to seek asylum in Germany. This insider perspective provides a way of analyzing that might be hard to be done by other researchers due to barriers of language and culture.

In this study, all participants have been given the time to share their experiences and express their opinions about the phenomenon in question. Moreover, the author observed the living conditions inside the collective accommodations, such as the size of the rooms and the number of beds inside them, and also the shared facilities, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and corridors. In addition, the author observed the instruction and announcement boards that usually exist inside the collective accommodations.

From a methodological aspect, this study uses grounded theory, (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to explore experiences and interpretations of young adult asylum seekers and employees (social workers and a psychological therapist) in the violence (insults and assaults) that arises between two individuals or two groups of young asylum seekers in the collective accommodations. Thereby, the research steps of data collection and data analysis were used in parallel to build on the existing information from previous interviews until saturation. The analysis followed the coding scheme as suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1998).

Findings

How does the asylum procedure generate violence among young adult asylum seekers in the collective accommodations? To answer this question, the present study explores how the asylum procedure and its implementation force asylum seekers to live in “unhomely places” where they have no privacy and autonomy. In addition, it shows how the asylum procedure deprives young adult asylum seekers from essential human needs, such as work and full access to health care, and how that influences other kinds of needs such as the ability to pay for marriage expenses and to get treatment for some psychological problems such as trauma. The current study explores how this results in young adult asylum seekers lacking a daily routine as adult people. Then it analyses how these circumstances lead to feelings of uncertainty and desperation, and catalyze violence. It also shows how disagreements over maintaining the house rules are only triggers of the violence among them.

Unhomely Places

The asylum seeker camps, as the author observed and as the interviewees reported, are “unhomely places”. They are located far away from the residential areas and lack the most important elements of the home, namely privacy and autonomy. Inside the asylum seekers’ shared accommodations where the study was conducted, asylum seekers cannot choose either the room or the roommates. In some cases, four or five people from the same country or from different countries have to live in a small room. In some rooms, beds are put on top of each other due to lack of space and residents of several rooms have to share the kitchen, toilets, bathrooms, and washing machines. Lack of privacy is a big problem, especially for asylum seekers who have psychological problems and those who are not used to living with a large number of people. The following quotations show this.

I am an introvert, therefore, the thing that annoys me is that I am forced to live with people who I do not care to get to know…. I do not have any privacy, although I am a person who adores the private life. I like to be independent. Therefore, life in the camp is a big problem for me, it has made me depressed. Jamil, Syrian asylum seeker

Putting people together this way is not good at all. Putting four or five children in one room is not even allowed here in Germany. I do not know what they want by doing this. Boubacar, African asylum seeker

You do not even own anything special or valuable, you cannot put anything in your room without people seeing it. Hamdi, Syrian asylum seeker

If the person cannot enjoy his freedom in his house, then his life is hell…. Imagine you live with people who you cannot understand and they cannot understand you. Can you live with them? Hashim, Syrian asylum seeker

As the aforementioned quotes show, people who live in the collective accommodations have no privacy or autonomy, the most important characteristics of the home. This finding corresponds with the abovementioned results of other studies that also demonstrate the lack of the meaning of the “home” in the refugee and asylum seeker camps in other European countries, for instance, Grønseth et al. (2016) in Norway and Van der Horst (2004) in the Netherlands.

In addition, the collective accommodations where the study was conducted are places of social exclusion. Most of them are isolated in nonresidential areas far away from the city. As the interviewees mentioned, this has limited their chances to communicate with locals because there are no neighbors. More importantly, living there stigmatizes them as asylum seekers. This, the respondents think, hinders locals to contact with them. The following quotation reflects that.

The camp is far from the city and isolated from residential areas…. Living in the camp automatically labels me as a refugee…. To some, living in the camp means that we are nothing and have no future, they think that it is possible that we will rob them…you cannot communicate with people because there are no neighbors. When people see that we live here they do not want to approach us. Aguibou, African asylum seeker

This reflects the insights about refugee and asylum seeker camps as places of social exclusion, which is also similar in other European countries, for instance, in the abovementioned studies by Turner (2016), Kreichauf (2018), Grønseth et al. (2016), and Szczepanikova (2013).

As previously demonstrated, the studies also mentioned some negative effects of staying for extended periods of time in the refugee and asylum seeker accommodation centers, such as hindering socioeconomic integration (Szczepanikova, 2013), losing control over their lives, negative influences on mental health (Bakker et al., 2014; Hallas et al., 2007), restlessness, fatigue, despair (Vitus, 2010), loss of sense of security, education, and employment (Phillips, 2006), hampering integration in the job market (Eisnecker & Schacht, 2016), and losing feelings of well-being (Hauge et al., 2017). Yet one important aspect that has not been addressed in the existing studies is the fact that spending an extended period of time in these unhomely places that lack privacy and autonomy catalyzes violence among asylum seekers as the following quotations show.

The more they stay in the camp the more they have the feeling that their dreams are fading away. They feel they have to live in this camp and have no chance to start their lives in Germany, especially with those who have no chance of staying in Germany. But at the same time, they cannot go back to their countries…. This bad feeling is the reason for the violent behaviour. Caren, social worker

I think the nature of housing for asylum seekers plays a big role in the occurrence of violence among them. The smaller the number of asylum seekers in the rooms, the more privacy they have. I think the issue of privacy in housing is very important. It can be difficult to provide it to anyone who seeks asylum, but it is difficult to ignore this need for a long time. Some people here are forced to share the same room with others for a period of two or three years. Emma, social worker

They came here with so many dreams and hopes to change their lives, then they realized that they are stuck here. Therefore, they become disappointed and they become more violent. Andrea, psychological therapist

Thereby, the asylum procedure as a “total institution” forces asylum seekers as inmates to live in “unhomely places”, lacking the most important elements of the home, privacy, and autonomy. As explained, this plays a significant role in provoking violence among them.

Deprivation of Essential Human Needs

Another important characteristic of the asylum procedure as a “total institution” is the fact that it deprives them from essential human needs as adult people. The asylum procedure means for the people who are subject to it, especially those who come to Germany from “safe countries”, a lack of access to work, language schools to learn German and the health care system. Not fulfilling these essential human needs in practice means preventing them from fulfilling other human needs. For instance, depriving them of the right to work also means preventing them from renting an apartment, getting married, and sending money back to their families. In addition, it means that people have nothing to do, so they lack a daily routine as adults. Furthermore, not having full access to the health care system means that asylum seekers cannot get treatment for several kinds of diseases, especially psychological problems, such as trauma.

The results from this study provide evidence that most of the asylum seekers, especially those from safe countries, have no right to work, although some of them arrived in Germany years before. All they have is pocket money from the government. Preventing them from working is the worst consequence of the asylum procedure on the lives of asylum seekers as the following quotations show.

I got a work permit then it expired but working is a right for me…. I feel they are not working to make things easier for me but to make it harder. We are adults and we have many needs, so it is really very hard because you cannot get what you need. The money provided to you is just for living. Joseph, African asylum seeker

Moreover, this situation of the asylum seekers, namely depending on their living on the state support has a special difficulty, which contradicts what they are used to in their cultures. The man should not only work but should also be the breadwinner for the whole family, as this interviewee states.

The male in those cultures is supposed to be the person who works and supports the family. They are here for three years and do not know what will happen to them and they are fully dependent on the financial assistance. They love to work, but what they were offered to do is work for 80 cents per hour. I think this is very humiliating…most of them are Muslims so the situation here as asylum seekers is very far from the meaning of being a man in Islamic culture. I mean they are dependent on others for their livelihood and I think this pressure makes them aggressive. Andrea, psychological therapist

In addition, preventing asylum seekers from work has other implications. For instance, in many cases, families have sold valuable land or have gone into large amounts of debt in order to finance their child’s journey, with the expectation that the child will send remittances home upon arrival (Gladwell & Elwyn, 2012; Furst-Nichols & Jacobsen, 2011). Therefore, there is psychological pressure on the young adult asylum seekers to repay the debt and to support their families.

Additionally, preventing them from work affects their ability to get married because they cannot rent a private dwelling and all they have is a bed in a shared room. Additionally, as some employees reported, some of the asylum seekers might have additional problems due to the fact that there is a lack of women among asylum seekers in Germany. For instance, in 2016, 65.7% of the asylum applications were filed by male applicants (BAMF, 2016). That means the chances of a man meeting a woman inside this “community” are very limited. At the same time, some of the asylum seekers do not want to have a relationship with a woman without being married. That means that either he cannot be in a relationship, which is very important for people at this age, or he gets into a psychological struggle of whether to maintain or to depart from his cultural values about having a relationship without being married.

In fact, this causes confusion. They want to have a woman but in the same way as in their countries and in their cultures. Heike, social worker

I think that in their cultures they are supposed to be married at the age of 27 or around this and this creates psychological pressure on them as some feel that they are past the age of marriage…. They have no idea how to behave in Germany. They are looking for lifelong love or a lifetime partner, while many women here do not prefer that. Andrea, psychological therapist

Another important feature of the lives of asylum seekers in the collective accommodations where the study was conducted is the lack of a daily routine that adults generally have. They practically have nothing to do, they have no job and do not attend German language schools. They suffer from boredom and they stay awake until the morning and then they try to sleep for as long as they can in order to not feel time. Around the middle of the day, they wake up and prepare their first meal as some interviewees explained.

For me, it is hard that there is nothing to do. You want to do something useful for yourself and for society, but you cannot. Every month we get money for food, all we do is eat and sleep…this makes us lose our minds because if you sit down every day and have nothing to do but to just think about your situation, it makes you lose your mind. Lambert, African asylum seeker

The lack of daily routines also plays a role in catalyzing violence among them as the following quotations show.

Violence among refugees happens because of boredom. When a refugee sits in a camp and has no work, no language school to learn the language and no clear goal in his life…. I have clearly seen that when there is nothing to force them to get out of the camp and the circle of boredom in order to meet people outside. Adib, social worker

When you put so many people in one place and they do not have clear expectations for the future and they have many psychological and social problems, certainly, violence will emerge between them. It would be the same if Germans were placed in the same circumstances. I do not know why they are doing this and then they are surprised when violence among asylum seekers occurs. Emma, social worker

Moreover, asylum seekers do not have full access to the German health care system. According to the law, asylum seekers only have the right to treatment for acute diseases (Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz, 1997). Regarding psychological problems, what makes the situation more difficult is the fact that psychotherapists and psychiatrists in Germany and in other central European countries have received large numbers of refugees in recent times. However, many of the professionals have no experience with the specific demands of working with this target group. This can mean that trauma therapists are trained and experienced in dealing with patients whose problems are embedded in a European cultural context, but are unprepared for the challenges of traumatized young adult asylum seekers who have endured civil wars, persecution, and flight (Anderson, 2016).

Furthermore, the social office hardly considers psychological problems such as trauma as emergency cases. Additionally, psychological problems need long-time treatment that might take months, creating another barrier for treatment.

Interviewee: This is the law and it states that during the waiting period of an asylum application result, the asylum seeker only receives health care for emergency cases.

Interviewer: Are psychological problems considered emergency cases that require health care?

Interviewee: The issue depends on whether the social office gives approval or not. Approval is often given once a week at most and the person needs to go over this for maybe a week or a month. Emma, social worker

In addition, asylum seekers who are described as more violent than others were exposed to torture in their origin countries, especially those who came from Syria and still suffer from the bad psychological effects of the experiences of war and torture.

Those who fought in armed groups before coming to Germany, those who have seen so much blood in their previous lives are more aggressive than others. Akram, social worker

People who were imprisoned or belonged to fighter groups and parties, those who came from countries that suffered from war and violence are used to solving problems with shouting and violence and get what they want by force. Some of them are educated and others are uneducated. Adib, social worker

Two asylum seekers who showed a tendency toward violence more than others, reported that they were exposed to torture in their home country.

During the war, I was arrested, tortured, and they broke my skull. A week of horror, you know what this prison means. From the prison to the hospital and then they deported me to my city. What happened caused a psychological crisis, after what had happened to me, I did not want to contact anyone. Anwar, Syrian asylum seeker

They wanted to arrest me, but I was 12 years old…. They came from the military checkpoint and hit me and cursed my mother and my family. Hakam, Syrian asylum seeker

This result corresponds with findings of other studies about the continuing cycle of violence and abuse. For instance, Catani et al. (2008) found a relationship between war violence and violent behaviour inflicted on children in their families. Also, Widom and Maxfield (2001) show that a childhood history of physical abuse predisposes the survivor to violence in later years and that victims of neglect are also likely to develop later violent criminal behaviour. As this subsection showed, the asylum procedure as a “total institution” also deprives people of essential human needs, resulting in more stress in their lives, leading to violence.

Uncertainty and Desperation as Risk Factors for Violence

Life in total institutions generally results in several bad outcomes, some of which have been addressed by Erving Goffman; most of those who end up in the total institutions, stay for a period of time and then leave and reenter society, but their lives are seriously affected after the experience. Some roles can be reestablished by the inmate if and when s/he returns to the world, but it is obvious that other losses are irrevocable and may be painfully experienced as such. It may not be possible to make up the time not spent in educational or job advancement, courting or rearing one’s children at a later phase of the life cycle (Goffman, 2017). Life in the total institutions enforces “inmates” to have a new concept of self-identity due to various reasons. For instance, the barrier that total institutions place between the inmate and the wider world marks the first curtailment of the self. Furthermore, the individual begins a series of abasements, degradations, humiliations, and profanations of self. The self is systematically, often unintentionally, mortified. The individual begins some radical shifts in his/her moral career, a career composed of the progressive changes that occur in the beliefs that s/he has concerning him/herself and significant others (Goffman, 2017).

In the case of the asylum procedure as a “total institution”, people are forced to follow a certain procedure with specific implications, resulting in the feeling of uncertainty. Young adult asylum seekers, especially those who come from “safe countries”, are uncertain about how long they will stay in the shared accommodations and cannot predict the outcome of their asylum applications. Will they be granted asylum or will they be sent back to their home country? Yet most of them pay a large sum of money to finance this journey and, as explained earlier, for many of them their families are waiting for money to be sent back to them. This is reflected in the following quotation.

The main problem is that some are waiting a long time to get an answer from the asylum application. Some have waited two years for an answer from the court. They do not know what the outcome will be, whether they will be deported or granted asylum. They cannot get the right to learn the language. This generates anger and pressure, and thus violence. Abeer, social worker

In addition, asylum seekers who have newly arrived in Germany cannot speak the German language and they do not know the German asylum laws. Therefore, they have perceived the asylum laws as contradictory and incomprehensible, although some social workers try to explain the laws to them. This results in more feelings of uncertainty about their future and losing control over their lives, therefore, they feel more pressure, as illustrated in this quotation.

They do not know what the roles of the Social Bureau or the Office of Foreigners or other authorities are. This makes them frustrated…. In addition, there is a language barrier. Sometimes someone who speaks their language goes with me in order to explain it to them. But despite the translation, it is still difficult for them to understand asylum laws in Germany. Emma, social worker

What aggravates the situation is the problem of what the author of this study calls “inapplicable cultural capital”; what they have learned in their origin countries seems to be inapplicable in many situations in the host country. At the same time, they have not yet learned the language, laws, and system of ethics in the host society. That means they often do not know or they are not sure if their conduct is appropriate or wrong. This situation of social illiteracy results in uncertainty and lack of confidence in their behaviour as these quotations explain.

They make a constant effort to compensate or to keep up with the situation here because what they have learned and the way they behave does not work out here. So they have to learn the culture again, not only that, but they also have the problem of uncertainty about their reactions. They do not know if the way they behave is correct or not. They always ask what is right, and in what context and time. As a result, they are in a state of total uncertainty. As asylum seekers, they are trying to do things as well as possible, but at the same time, they feel that this is unaffordable. Andrea, psychological therapist

This country is very developed compared with the countries that we come from. Therefore, we need to be aware of these differences; not only put the people in the camps but also teach them the rules inside the camp, such as do not smoke inside the camp and keep the place clean…so far no one has told me about the laws of the country…I see the situation here like this: when you are on the street, just act like the people around you. Jamil, Syrian asylum seeker

This case of uncertainty and desperation that is a result of their lives as asylum seekers subjected to this unknown and unpredictable procedure leads them to get into conflict and commit violence against each other, even over trivial reasons. As many employees remarked, this becomes particularly visible over the course of time. The following quotation illustrates this.

This is something we see. I know asylum seekers who came a year ago did not have a tendency toward violence, but their situation has become more and more unstable due to psychological problems that mainly occur because of the loss of hope for the future. Emma, social worker

Generally, the social workers and the psychological therapist observed the relationship between the asylum procedure and violence more than the asylum seekers themselves. This is likely the case because of the long experience of many of them in dealing with asylum seekers in different settings.

As this subsection showed, the asylum procedure creates a huge amount of pressure for the young adult asylum seekers and this is a major reason for the violence among them. The asylum procedure means that people are subject to living in confined places that lack privacy and autonomy, preventing them, especially those from safe countries, from satisfying their necessary individual needs as adult people, such as the need to work, rent a private dwelling, learn the language of the host society, and have a clear perception of their future. This contradiction between their situation as asylum seekers and between their needs as human beings makes them feel uncertain and desperate, resulting in violence.

Disagreements on Maintaining the House Rules as Triggers for Violence

Violence among young adult asylum seekers in their collective accommodations usually happens after a disagreement on maintaining the house rules, such as cleaning the kitchen or the bathroom, and using the washing machine. However, disagreements on maintaining the house rules should not be considered as a reason for this violence. Topics of conflict are not constant as conflict can happen over disagreements about one house rule or another. Therefore, the disagreements on maintaining the house rules should be considered as just triggers and not the real reasons for violence resulting from these conflicts, as these quotations illustrate.

People do not have anything to do, at the same time they are in a foreign country and they do not know each other, they just met here in Germany. Some days we fight each other over the simplest things, such as who left the cup, the spoon or the knife here. The reasons for the problems are simple and the fact that there is nothing to do is the problem. Jamil, Syrian refugee

Unfortunately, all the disagreements between me and them were over trivial reasons. Anwar, Syrian refugee

Shops close at 8p.m. and everyone meets in the camp and they have nothing to do and nothing to relieve the pressures. Usually, they wake up at 1:00 p.m. Because of that, they will stay awake until 4 in the morning. Therefore, the night and early morning is when most conflicts happen. There is nothing but restlessness and chaos. Any small problem will breed brawls and violence…. When a person has worries and problems, he always thinks about it day and night…. In fact, they face new difficulties and major challenges. These fears may be real or exaggerated but lead to conflicting things in his mind. This great pressure may appear in a disagreement over a simple and trivial reason. For instance, moving a chair from its place may lead to conflict and casualties, and police intervention. Adib, social worker

The previous quotation clearly shows that the triggers of the violence are varied and not constant. Therefore, it is not valid to consider them as reasons for violence. Their boring lives due to the fact that they have nothing to do, such as working or attending a language school, leads them to fight each other over any reason. This becomes evident when one looks at what time of day this violence mostly erupts. As the previous quotation shows, violence happens mostly at night when they cannot hang around in the city anymore and they have to return back to their shelters. At the same time, they do not have enough money to order a cup of coffee or a meal in a restaurant. In this way, the asylum procedure plays a role in leading them into violent behaviour, particularly when they are prohibited from working and have no money to socialize outside of their accommodations. The disagreements on maintaining the house rules are not the real reasons for the violence among young adult asylum seekers in the collective accommodations. The significant reason for this kind of violence, as explained earlier, is the asylum procedure that leads to feelings of uncertainty and desperation.

Discussion

The two main concepts that explain the violence among young adult asylum seekers in their shared accommodations are uncertainty and desperation, both resulting from the asylum procedure itself. The asylum procedure means that people from different countries have to live together, sometimes more than four people in the same room. Thereby, these collective accommodations lack the basic conditions of home: privacy and autonomy.

In addition, the asylum procedure deprives asylum seekers from essential human needs such as the right to work, rent a dwelling, have full access to the health care system, and learn the language of the host country. In addition, depriving the asylum seekers these essential needs, influences their ability to fulfil other needs. For instance, depriving them the right to work and to rent a flat potentially means they cannot afford marriage expenses and preventing them from receiving full access to the health care system means they have very limited chances to get treatment for psychological problems such as trauma.

Their lives as asylum seekers, which prevent them from fulfilling their needs, makes them lose control of their lives and feel desperate, leading them to get into violent behaviour against each other even over trivial things like moving a chair. Escaping this stressful life is completely related to having the right to asylum. Yet due to the lack of the German language and the complexity of the asylum procedure in Germany, asylum seekers are unable to understand the asylum procedure laws.

Moreover, this study shows the relationship between spending an extended amount of time in the collective asylum seeker accommodations and the tendency toward violent behaviour. Asylum seekers whose asylum procedure takes longer, such as asylum seekers from non-war zones, have to stay longer inside the camps or the shared apartments, and this tends to cause them to become more violent. In contrast, when the asylum seekers, as the social employees have noticed, get the right to stay in the country as refugees, their behaviour changes and they become much less violent because they are able to start learning the language, have the right to work and so on. The following quotations elaborate on this.

When people start learning the language and they have work, their problems decrease by 70 or even 80 percent….They have to sleep at 10 or 11 p.m. and do not stay awake until 4 a.m. because they have goals such as learning the language. They think less about the family and the conditions they lived in their home country. Instead of thinking about negative things and the past, they start thinking about the future. Adib, social worker

The most violent people are those who have an ambiguous or turbulent vision of the future. For example, if a person is from a country classified as safe, making it difficult for him to obtain asylum, he will become more violent. In contrast, people who go to language schools and are allowed to work in Germany will no doubt be less violent. To reduce the violence, it is important to let people have something to do such as learning the language or working during the day. Emma, social worker

In addition, the study shows the relationship between exposure to torture, especially in the case of the Syrian asylum seekers, and the tendency toward violence. Treatment for psychological problems is related to being granted asylum. In this way, the asylum procedure also plays a significant role in catalyzing the violence among young adult asylum seekers. This result corresponds with the findings of a study by Pittaway (2004) in Australia who argues that violence in refugee families is often caused by social disruption, experience of trauma, and the emotional problems that they experienced in being uprooted and resettled.

The major result of this study is that uncertainty and desperation that result from living in unhomely places and depriving people from their essential human needs, such as the need to work, rent a dwelling, and have full access to the health care system are significant reasons for violence among young adult asylum seekers in their collective accommodations. Therefore, the study shows that the disagreements on maintaining the house rules are not the real reasons for this violence; they are only triggers since they are not constant.

Violent offenders are mainly understood in sociological research as individuals who plan and act rationally (Sutterlüty, 2007). However, the present study results provide evidence that violence among asylum seekers happens due to the asylum procedure itself, which is not rationalized by them. Therefore, violence among asylum seekers cannot be illustrated by using classical Western conflict theories such as economic competition on limited sources, by racial segregation or by social inequality. Hence, this study can contribute to asylum seeker and refugee studies by trying to explain violence through the concepts of “uncertainty and desperation” that result from the asylum procedure.

In fact, the situation of the asylum seekers as people who are “waiting” is the main problem. They do not have clear legal status as refugees. In the legal definition, they are people who seek asylum, which they may or may not receive. This ambiguity in their legal situation makes it difficult for lawyers or human rights organizations to defend their human rights in work, housing, language learning and in health care. Hence, some of the social workers and young adult asylum seekers call for changing the asylum procedure in a way that guarantees their human rights, regardless of their status.

Asylum laws should be developed so that more rights are granted to asylum seekers. There should be a new legal framework for asylum seeker status. This means that the rights and duties of asylum seekers should be clear in the asylum law so that their rights in housing, learning, and work can be legally defended. If these rights can be legally defended, we as social workers can talk to the Office of Social Affairs and city administrations. Emma, social worker

It is not fair to leave people here for years without doing anything. We should at least give them a chance to learn a profession, and if they return, they can change something in their home countries. Andrea, psychological therapist

Sometimes they leave you here for three years, then they tell you to go back to your country. Then you start thinking about different things, including thinking about hurting yourself…. Sometimes it is important that you get psychotherapy, the pressure you feel when you think about when you are in the desert, reasons that prompted you to leave your country… these things drive a man crazy and make him suffer from nightmares…. So if the German government could end the procedure so that we could have a decision on asylum within three months, it would be good. Gouzou, African asylum seeker

The main finding of this study corresponds with the findings of Philip Zimbardo (2004), who for more than 25 years of research, tried to show that all people are part of the human condition, that humility takes precedence over unfounded pride in acknowledging our vulnerability to situational forces. Situations exert more power over human actions than has been generally recognized by most psychologists and the public. Acknowledging the power of situational forces does not excuse the behaviour channeled by them, rather, it provides a knowledge base to shift attention from simplistic “blaming of the victim” and individualistic treatments to change the evildoer, to more profound attempts to discover how to modify those situations or to avoid them (Zimbardo, 1995).

The asylum procedure as a “total institution” enforces asylum seekers to live in isolation, most of the time away from the host society by living in shelters far from the residential areas. In addition, it traps them in a circle life, in which they cannot predict their futures and plan their lives. In this way, asylum seekers lose control over their lives and feel uncertain and desperate and get into violent conflict with each other.

This reflects what Goffman found for the case of mental hospitals and other kinds of “total institutions”, such as monasteries, boarding schools, and military camps, which all enforce their inmates to lose their individual choices in order to reshape the life of those people. This is comparable to the case of asylum seekers. Therefore, violence among asylum seekers should be understood as a product of the institution and not as outcomes of individual choices.

Conclusion

The structural violence of the asylum regime itself as a total institution—as explained in the previous sections—causes violence among individuals. Thereby, this finding relates to asylum seekers and not to refugees because after being granted asylum in Germany, people have the right to work, study, rent a private dwelling, and full health insurance.

In addition, this kind of violence is related more to those who come from countries that are classified in the German law as “safe”. This is the case because those asylum seekers, usually from African countries, have to stay in the collective accommodations for a longer period of time than those who come from warzones like Syria. As the study shows, the longer people stay in this kind of accommodation, the more violent they become. However, people who come from warzones, especially those who experienced violence or participated in violent conflicts in their origin countries, are—as the study showed—also more violent than others who did not experience violence before.

The results of this study can be generalized within Germany because the asylum law is defined by the BAMF so that the core of the asylum procedure is the same in all the federal states. However, the results of the study might not be applicable to other destination countries of forced migrants, which may apply different asylum regimes and give more or fewer rights to asylum seekers. In addition, the classification of “safe” and “unsafe” origin countries might also be different.

Furthermore, this study explores violence only among young male adult asylum seekers. Hence, the results are related only to this group of asylum seekers and cannot necessarily be generalized to other groups of asylum seekers. For instance, females were not included due to cultural barriers and difficulties in accessing them as participants. Also, minors were not included due to legal limitations to interview them. Additionally, the present study did not include violence within asylum seeker families, which is beyond the scope of this study.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to all asylum seekers, social workers, and psychological therapists who generously shared their knowledge and experiences with him.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation under Grant Agreement No. 94721.

ORCID iD

Ahmad Al Ajlan

Author Biography

Ahmad Al Ajlan is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Conflict and Violence Research at Bielefeld University, Germany. Currently he works on the topic integration and disintegration of older-age Syrian refugees in Germany. Before that he conducted the study Exploring Conflicts among Unaccompanied Young Male Refugees in Germany: A Comparative Analysis in Different Accommodation Settings, funded by VolkswagenStiftung (.

In addition, he participated in an international project between Germany, South Africa, and Pakistan about “the violence related norms, attitudes and beliefs of young men in high-risk urban neighborhoods” (.

In his home country Syria, Dr. Al Ajlan held a chair as a lecturer in political science at AL Furat University before he was forced to leave due to the war situation in his country. During his PhD (Damascus University, Syria 2010) he explored some of the social impacts of globalization on Arabic states. His Master thesis in sociology at Damascus University, Syria was about the political utilization of the effects of the environment on society in the work of Ibn Khaldoun and Charles Louis Montesquieu.

Publications

Ajlan, A. A. (2019). Syrians in Germany: individuals’ reasons for returning or remaining. Forced Migration Review, 62.

Ajlan, A. A. (2019). Older refugees in Germany: What are the reasons for the difficulties in language-learning? Journal of Refugee Studies.

Ajlan, A. A. (2018). Quarrels between young refugees and young Germans in Bautzen. How has it turned into bad treatment against refugees and what are the effects? Journal of Identity and Migration Studies, 12(2), 111–132.

Ajlan, A. A. (2018) Syrian economies: a temporary boom? Forced Migration Review, 58(29).

Ajlan, A. A. (2010). Ibn Khaldun: founder of a new social science. Arabian Heritage Magazine.

Ajlan, A. A. (2010). The state theory of Montesquieu. Eden University Magazine.

Ajlan, A. A. (2009). The structural problems of the Arabic States and the shock of the globalization. Damascus University Magazine.

Ajlan, A. A. (2009). Political utilization of the natural environment effect on societies between Ibn Khaldun and Montesquieu. Rislan Publication House.

Ajlan, A. A. (2009). The theory of the state by Ibn Khaldun. Damascus University Magazine.

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