This series looks at the lives of asylum seekers and refugees trapped in the maze of the European asylum system, the Dublin regulation. It focuses on the top three countries continuously criticised by the European Court of Human Rights and the UNHCR: Italy, Hungary and Greece. The project highlights the hardship, poverty and repercussions of a life in limbo that thousands of vulnerable people searching for protection face as a result of the current European Union approach to asylum.
There is still no unified asylum law in the European Union. Asylum seekers are treated differently from country to country. The EU asylum system has been considered a failure by Human rights groups and the UNHCR for years. The Dublin Regulation determines which country is responsible for an asylum claim within the European Union. This is usually the country an asylum seeker enters the region through first. Each asylum seeker is fingerprinted on arrival and registered with a European wide computer system. This means they can be linked and deported to their country of entry should they try and settle in a EU state of their choice.
