It would be wrong to think about universal solutions for all the Ukrainian refugees who seek asylum as each case is unique and each refugee has individual needs, Vadim Pistrinciuc, executive director of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives (IPIS), stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.
“Each case is exclusive. Some do not seek asylum because they think that if they apply here, they will be unable to apply in another country. So, each case has its own particularities. We know families of refugees who do not seek asylum because they regularly return home as they have some other goods, assets or economic activities there. Others leave a part of the family here and the other part in Ukraine. Each case is individual,” said Vadim Pistrinciuc.
He noted that the obtaining of documents for applying for temporary protected status is a problem not only for refugees. The process implies a higher level of bureaucracy, but without this bureaucracy it would be impossible to offer social assistance, assistance and protection for a longer period of time.
Vadim Pistrinciuc said that one can bank on support and greater involvement on the part of the NGO sector for longer periods of time. But there will not be such intensity as at the beginning, when the NGOs could practically replace the capacities of the state.
“The state comes primarily with documents that are needed for temporary protection and the refugees can later integrate into the few, but existing social, educational, health resources here. Bureaucracy always has a negative side and a positive side. It will be harder to process such a large number of documents if a lot of people come after documents during a short period of time. For now, such a thing is not seen. The people who apply for documents required for obtaining temporary protected status are not newcomers. They schedule an appointment beforehand. They came to the Republic of Moldova a longer period of time ago. I don’t think that if all the displaced persons interested in obtaining Moldovan papers do not succeed in doing this, someone would say that they should be driven away as they failed to get IDs,” said Vadim Pistrinciuc.
The IPIS director noted that the state came with the necessary amendments, but these need to be implemented carefully as the “small country with a big heart” as the Republic of Moldova is described now in the context of the phenomenon of Ukrainian refugees should remain so during long periods of time as it doesn’t go only to the “heart”, but also to particular commitments undertaken by Moldova, including as a signatory of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The public debate entitled “Difficulties in providing temporary protection to Ukrainian refugees. How can they be overcome?” was staged by IPN News Agency as part of the initiative “Socially Responsible Management of External Financing” of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives (IPIS) in partnership with the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, with support from Soros Foundation Moldova.
