There are good reasons to restrict the S status of Ukrainians

Comment

Ukraine is not just a gigantic battlefield, according to our journalist specializing in the conflict. In many areas, life is relatively safe – and therefore acceptable. With what consequences for Swiss asylum policy? What should Switzerland really be ashamed of by restricting S status? Comment.

Kurt Pelda / ch media

We cannot measure the solidarity of a country by the aid it provides to people who do not really need it. When resources run out – and this is not only true in the field of asylum and immigration – reason and humanity dictate that we focus on those most in need.

Of course, Russian missiles, drones and even cruise missiles occasionally strike western Ukraine, near the borders with the NATO countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Nevertheless, everyone who travels to Ukraine notices the difference between the regions close to the front in the east and south and the largely spared regions in the west.

Useless sirens

To cite just one example, the difference between Kharkiv, the country’s second city, located not far from the Russian border, and Lviv is striking. Almost every night in Kharkiv, the impacts of Russian hovering bombs are heard. Whereas in Lviv, about 900 kilometers away, nothing often happens for weeks.

In the west, some people may suffer from sleep disturbances due to airborne alarm sirens that sound constantly. However, it is not because we hear them regularly that the entire territory is a battlefield. Instead of providing brief and targeted warning in the event of a threat, as in Israel, kyiv prefers to send its employees, students and pupils to hole up for hours in shelters. Meanwhile, the rest of the population pays no attention to the alarms.

In most cases, nothing happens. Better targeted alerts would save lives and reduce sleep problems.

Above all, the wail of the sirens is not enough to justify access to one of the most generous asylum and protection systems in the world. There are no statistics to determine how many people seeking protection in Switzerland come from the west or the east and south of Ukraine. But the modification of protection status S adopted by Parliament does not concern refugees who have already arrived. She is aiming for the next ones.

And among these people, it is entirely appropriate to distinguish between those who come from war zones or territories occupied by Russia and those who come from the western regions of the countryrelatively safe, where the risk of suffering damage during a road accident is greater than during a Russian bombing.

The new regulations would mean that the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) would have to closely monitor front movements in future and know the regions at risk in real time. It would also be necessary to study the places where drone and missile strikes are particularly numerous. It would be easy for Kharkiv, but the case of the port city of Odessa, to the south and increasingly targeted by Moscow, would give decision-makers more trouble.

Ending a shocking system

The new regulations would also address a particularly shocking situation: property owners in western Ukraine often rent their empty apartments and houses to displaced people from eastern regions, at rents sometimes far too high. These same owners then quietly leave to live in Switzerland, in the name of S status, at the expense of the community. This must change.

However, the National Council failed to remove another glaring injustice: Ukrainians seeking protection can continue to spend up to two weeks on vacation in their country. It is quite different for asylum seekers: those who go to their country of origin risk losing their status in Switzerland. We must finally put an end to this discrimination against people mainly from Africa or Asia.

To truly help Ukraine, Switzerland should show greater solidarity outside the area of ​​asylum and protection. Our humanitarian aid has so far remained shamefully timid. As winter approaches and Russia causes repeated power cuts, it is high time that “the country of humanitarian tradition” justifies its reputation.

(Translated from German by Valentine Zenker)

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