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Key Recommendations

To the Ukrainian Government:

• Strengthen human rights protection by bringing legislation on migrants and asylum seekers, and its implementation, into compliance with international standards.

• Immediately make it possible for every asylum seeker to fairly present a claim, and have protection in safe and sanitary conditions pending the determination of that claim. Amend existing legislation to provide accessible mechanisms to allow access to asylum procedures, in particular, by providing a meaningful right to a lawyer, as well as establishing in law a transparent process for challenging a deportation order.

• Cease the routine detention of asylum seekers. Detention should be carried out only where a less restrictive alternative, or release, is shown in a particular case to be insufficient to achieve the stated, lawful and legitimate purpose. Migrants and asylum seekers should not be detained beyond the proscribed limits in Ukrainian law.

• Provide detainees with the right to apply for release.

• Bring conditions of immigration detention into line with minimum international standards.

To the European Union and its Member States:

• Condition the implementation of any future returns agreement on a clear set of benchmarks including legislative improvements and the upgrading of reception and detention conditions in Ukraine.

• Until those benchmarks are met, refrain from sending asylum seekers and migrants to Ukraine.

• Ensure that any future E.U. initiative in relation to Ukraine is not used to justify the exclusion from the E.U. of asylum seekers who transit through Ukraine, or their summary removal from E.U. territory, without first determining their protection needs.

• Ensure that the E.U. returns policy includes accountability for law enforcement and immigration officials who violate any safeguards aimed at protecting returnees’ rights, particularly protection against return to torture or other ill-treatment.

• Encourage independent monitoring by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of points of entry into the E.U. (border check points, temporary reception centers, detention facilities for asylum seekers and migrants), in order to increase transparency, and in the interest of guaranteeing that the right to seek asylum is respected.

A Note on Methodology: Detention Facilities Visited

Human Rights Watch was provided broad access to detention facilities in Ukraine, including those to which Ukrainian NGOs have limited access. We visited four special detention centers for “vagrants” operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (in Russian priemniki-rasprediteli, or reception-distribution centers, also known as “vagabonds’ centers”) in Kyiv, Cernihiv (Cernigov), Lviv, and Uzghorod. Human Rights Watch researchers were also given access to six detention facilities operated by the Border Guard Service of Ukraine: Boryspil-Kyiv international airport detention facility, Mukachevo center for women and children, Pavshino center for men, Lviv regional detention facility, Mostyska detention facility, and Rava Ruska border crossing short-term detention facility. We were unable to visit the Chop border guard detention facility, but conducted many interviews with former Chop detainees.¹

In Hungary, Human Rights Watch visited the Debrecen refugee reception center, and six facilities under the authority of the Hungarian border guard service: Nyírbátor and Budapest detention facilities; and Záhony, Nyiregyháza, Nyírábrányi, and Budapest international airport short-term detention facilities.

Our researchers also visited several facilities in Slovakia, including the Sečovce and Medvedov detention facilities, Sobrance and Vysne Nemecke border-guard facilities, and the Gabcikovo refugee center.

In Poland, our researchers visited deportation centers in Lublin and Bielsko-Biała, the Warsaw Okęcie border-guard detention facility, the Leszno-wola closed center, and the Dębak and Siekierki refugee centers.

In the interests of the security of the individuals concerned, the names of all migrants and asylum seekers interviewed for this report have been disguised, through the use of pseudonyms or assigned initials. Where interviewees chose their own pseudonyms, quotation marks are used around the name. Other pseudonyms and initials were assigned by Human Rights Watch.

For further information on methodology, see the end of this report.

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