On the frontiers of a needy world: like most western Europe countries, Switzerland is seeing a rise in asylum applications. Mary Lean finds out how the Swiss are responding - Cover Story

For A Change, April-May, 2003 by Mary Lean

It has been snowing heavily in the border town of Vallorbe, Switzerland. On the steps of the railway station, two men from Iraq are smoking and gazing out across the valley at the people skiing on the slopes opposite. They have been in Switzerland for less than two weeks.

One of them is a restaurant owner from Baghdad. His mother and sister are in the US, and his contact with them earned him nine months in prison, after which he paid a trafficker $4,000 to bring him to the West. He is equally appalled by Saddam's regime, by the prospect of war and by the West's motives, as he perceives them.

'So what is the answer?' I ask.

'If I knew the answer, I would tell you,' he says. Then, after a pause, he adds, 'I have come here, that's the answer.'

Last year, over half a million people came up with the same answer to the question of survival and sought asylum in the West. Some were running from oppression and persecution; some from war; some from poverty--many from all three. While a cynical minority exploited the asylum system for criminal or political reasons, most were driven by desperation.

And they were greeted by desperation: systems buckling under the numbers arriving, governments frantic to stem the flow, and host communities fearful for their jobs, houses and traditions. When the figures for 2002 are finally in, the numbers applying for asylum in Britain are expected to have topped 100,000 for the first time. Switzerland's total is a quarter of that, but with a population an eighth the size of Britain's, this gives her one of the highest per capita application rates in Europe.

Since I started working with detained asylum seekers in Britain, seven years ago, I have believed that the West's response to the 'strangers at its door' is a litmus test of our democracies, and of our moral and spiritual values. I went to Switzerland to see how a small country, with a long history of grassroots democracy and cultural diversity, is coping with the thousands throwing themselves on her mercy.

HOST COMMUNITY

As in Britain, the issue of asylum is a hot one. Many of the host community greet the phenomenon with fear and suspicion, particularly when asylum seekers are placed in small rural communities. People associate asylum seekers with crime and drug-dealing, even though recent statistics suggest that only a small minority is involved in such activities.

In November a referendum on tightening Switzerland's asylum laws was defeated by a margin of only 0.2 per cent. Had it been passed, stated the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the country would have decided to 'more or less shut its doors to people fleeing persecution'. In December the town of Meilen, near Zurich, hit the headlines with a proposal to bar asylum seekers from most public amenities and from parts of the city. After an outcry the plans were relaxed.

In Switzerland, as in Britain, the voices of fear and reaction often drown out those of welcome and support--but the networks of volunteers across both countries testify that the louder voice is not telling the full story.

Switzerland, after all, is a country which is used to diversity, with its four national languages and its largely self-governing cantons. Every third person in the city of Lausanne is not Swiss. And many who are now Swiss citizens grew up elsewhere--like my host and hostess, Tom and Brigitte Zilocchi, (he in Luxembourg, she in Germany).

In her work as the Protestant Church's liaison with refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in Vaud, Brigitte Zilocchi oversees a plethora of voluntary relief and befriending initiatives.

One of these is ARAVOH, a group of 70 volunteers set up in 2000, when the Federal Government opened a reception centre for asylum seekers (CERA) in Vallorbe (population 3,000). Last year 11,000 asylum seekers passed through CERA, transforming this small town into a major interface between Switzerland and a needy world.

The centre is one of four in Switzerland where asylum applicants are processed and given health checks before being sent to wait in a canton for the outcome of their cases. They remain at CERA for one to two weeks, receiving full board but no cash. They are allowed out into the town for a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon.

I am met at the station by Christiane Mathys, a feisty grandmother. As we fight our way through the wind and snow, she regales me with her run-ins with the town council over the funding of ARAVOH. The presence of CERA has been a challenge for a community where, not so long ago, a 'foreigner' was someone from France. There have been some thefts, though none of the major crimes or rapes that the locals feared.

BONE OF CONTENTION

ARAVOH's volunteers take it in turns to man a tiny drop-in centre and second-hand clothes store in the town. This morning Rene, a town councillor, is dispensing coffee and a listening ear, while Jacqueline, a nurse, is coping with the run on boots, hats and gloves caused by the snowy weather. Karine pops in from the legal advice centre in the next room to give new arrivals lists of contacts in the different cantons to which they may be sent.