Nisanti’ s children have successfully adapted to life in Lithuania. Her youngest boy Ragit attends kindergarten. His older brother Dilikssan and sister Dayana are in school. They all speak fluent Lithuanian. foto G. Žilinskas

The Uncommon Daily Lives of Refugees in Lithuania

“Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Point 1 of Article 14.

Since ancient times, Lithuania has been known as a country that is tolerant towards foreigners and one which, for many centuries, has been home to people of different nationalities. Throughout its history Lithuania’s inhabitants have themselves experienced the fates of being refugees in other countries. This shared history requires that all of us understand both the significance of successful integration of refugees in Lithuania, as well as their contribution to the creation of a tolerant, open and mature society.

Over a decade ago, 22 foreigners who were granted temporary territorial asylum came to live in Lithuania. They were the first asylum seekers in reinstated independent Lithuania, and were accommodated at the Rukla Refugee Centre in Jonava District. This Centre was established in 1995 according to the Law On the Status of Refugees in the Republic of Lithuania. The backbone of this Law is the 1951 Geneva Convention, adopted by the United Nations. By 2007, more than a decade later, 480 people from different countries had requested asylum in Lithuania. Overall during the 10-year period, more than 4 thousand asylum seekers have arrived in Lithuania.

Since then, the number of foreigners seeking asylum has grown each year. This has prompted the adoption of various policies to assist their accommodation and employment in the new country. For these programmes to be effective it is crucial for society to understand what refugees are, why they have come to be in one country or another, and why they are asking for asylum.

Based on the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. Also, a refugee is every person who is forced to leave his/her country as a result of outside aggression, occupation, foreign rule or breaches of civil order in the whole country from which he/she is from, or that of which he/she is a citizen.

Over more than a decade, refugees from various countries have requested asylum in Lithuania: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, India, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, former Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe.

Most of the refugees from the Russian Federation are of Chechen ethnicity. Other large refugee flows come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia.

In order to better integrate refugees into society and to help them adapt in the new country, Lithuania is pursuing a social integration policy managed by the Care Institutions Provisions Centre at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, the Foreigner Registration Centre in Pabradė, the Refugee Reception Centre in Rukla, the Migration Department at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, local municipalities, and NGOs.

Every foreigner or person requesting asylum in Lithuania who has illegally crossed Lithuania’s border is first taken to the Foreigner Registration Centre at the National Border Security Office in Pabradė.

When an individual in Pabradė is given the status of a foreigner who has been granted territorial asylum, his/her supervision is transferred from the Ministry of Interior Affairs to the network of institutions under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour. Such a person, either individually or together with family, is transferred to the Refugee Reception Centre in Rukla, where foreigners usually stay for up to 6 months. This is where the initial integration process begins, preparing newcomers to independently live and work in Lithuania. Later, this integration is continued within the territory of the local municipality; here this program lasts 12 months or longer, depending on the circumstances.

The program is geared towards several phases of integration. First, foreigners with asylum are provided temporary housing – an apartment is rented, essential houseware and furniture are provided for them. Special attention is paid to foreigners’ education – there are intensive national language courses for adults, pre-school, and school-age children. The Centre also coordinates the occupation and employment of the foreigners: it assists them in job-hunting, organizes re-qualification and professional training courses, and provides the asylum grantees with social and medical security.

Along with these policies, special care is taken to inform the public about the status of refugees in the country, in hopes that this will help prevent xenophobia, the foreigners’ isolation, and simultaneously encourage tolerance towards these vulnerable groups. By telling the extraordinary stories of refugees through photographs, we hope this album will contribute to achieving these goals.

The idea for a photo album sprang up in the beginning of the summer of 2007, when the Care Institutions Provisions Centre invited five members of the Lithuanian Press Photographers’ Club (Tomas Bauras, Alius Koroliovas, Sigitas Stasaitis, Gediminas Žilinskas and Saulius Žiūra) to visit the Refugee Reception Centre in Rukla. The photographers spent the whole day at the Centre capturing moments in the asylum grantees’ daily lives and getting to know them in person. Later that summer, celebrating the World Refugee Day a photography exhibition titled “The Routine of Refugee Living in Lithuania” was presented to the public in Vilnius comprised of the photos taken in Rukla. Following the success of the exhibition some of the photographers, joined by Vladas Ščiavinskas, visited a number of refugees who were living on their own and building lives in various Lithuanian cities, and recorded moments in their daily routines. These fragments of the daily lives of refugees in Lithuania are reflected on the pages of this album.

“The Uncommon Daily Lives of Refugees in Lithuania” is a selection of refugees’ stories told with the help of art. Even if it may seem that the daily lives of these people are no different than ours, they actually imply extraordinary and deep experiences. It is precisely these experiences that colour their world with shades that are different from ours. We hope that reading this album will take you away for a few minutes into the world of the album’s heroes and help you appreciate the fate of refugees from the day they leave their homeland until the time when they establish themselves here in Lithuania. This album should also demonstrate that by making the decision to welcome asylum seekers to Lithuania, we have also agreed to accept responsibility for their futures and help them to endure the period of unrest in their home countries.

Aivydas Keršulis
Director Care Institutions Provisions Centre Ministry of Social Security and Labour