36,871 Persons Registered for International Protection in Belgium

Last year, 36,871 people applied for international protection at the Belgian Immigration Office.

The number includes 78 individuals who arrived in Belgium as part of resettlement.

These data show that the number of applicants is much higher than 2021 when there were 25,971 applicants. This represents an increase in 42 percent, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports

Statistics show that in 2022 there were an average of 3,073 applicants per day, as compared to 2,164 for 2021. In contrast, over 4,000 applicants were registered in September and October of last year.

In 2022, 70.6 percent of the applicants were males, compared to 29.4 percent for women. The percentage of male applicants in countries such as Afghanistan is even higher, at 93.2 percent.

Additional to Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine and Burundi were the countries of origin for most international protection applicants.

The percentage of late applications relative to the total number has declined by 12.6 percent in 2022, compared with 2021's 20.9 percent.

Statistics also reveal that the percentage of late applications in the top 20 countries (Iran, 38.1 percent, and Iraq, 45.1 percent) is still extremely high.

The Belgian Immigration Office recorded 3,615 unaccompanied minors who applied for international protection in the past year. This is 12.3percent more than 2021.
However, 2394 of the de facto minors were found to be after Custody Service examinations. The total number of unaccompanied foreign minors who applied for international protection is 93.8 percent. 66.7 per cent have Afghan citizenship.

The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies made 20,514 decisions for 25,066 individuals in 2022. This is an increase of 10.8 percent compared to 2021.

In 43 percent of final decisions made during the same time, the CGRS determined that the applicant was indeed in need of protection. The degree of protection in 2022 was the same as last year, at 43 percent against 43.5 percent. This totals 8,098 decisions which grant protection status to 10,632 people.

Overall, 41.1 percent of these decisions were made to recognize refugee status and 1.9% were to grant supplementary protection status.

In addition, in 2022, Syrians (2499), Afghans (2467), Eritreans (1357) and Palestinians (776) were granted the most recognised refugee statuses. The highest number of secondary protection statuses was granted to Yemenis (133), Somalis (1130), Syrians (37) and Palestinians (23).

 

Source: schengenvisainfo.com