Dutch Safety Board: Fix unsafe living conditions for children in emergency shelters

The Dutch Safety Board (OVV) has issued an “urgent recommendation” to the minister of asylum and migration to improve conditions for children in emergency asylum reception centers within six months. Those children are systematically "exposed to unsafe living conditions that pose serious risks to their development,” the board wrote in its report “Children in Distress,” published Monday. About 6,900 out of roughly 17,000 asylum-seeking children in the Netherlands are housed at emergency reception sites. “The Netherlands has fallen below the minimum standard of what is safe for children,” the OVV chair said.

The insecurity in emergency reception “is not the result of a crisis that has befallen us,” the OVV wrote. “Administrative choices and the use of crisis measures to address structural problems are causing this ongoing insecurity.”

Because emergency reception has been used on a large scale and for long periods to cover a structural shortage of regular places, more than 60 percent of all reception sites are now emergency facilities. The introduction of the Distribution Act has not produced enough additional space.

The parties responsible for arranging reception sites operate according to a “crisis logic,” the board said. Underlying problems are not being solved, and concessions made to create emergency sites have become normalized.

“Reduce the dependence on emergency reception sites and invest in a sustainable reception system,” said OVV chair Chris van Dam. Emergency reception in vacant offices, ships, or event halls was intended to be temporary, but children sometimes live there for years, he said.

Unsafe living conditions pose serious risks to a child’s development. Emergency sites often lack adequate health care and education and do not have enough space for play, rest, and privacy. The risk of encountering physical or sexual violence is also high. Housing is frequently unstable; many children move several times a year.

Warnings that emergency reception for asylum seekers is inadequate have circulated for years. Various organizations have raised the alarm since 2021. The OVV began its investigation in 2024.

The board issued a recommendation to move away from crisis logic and address the acute problems. It cannot impose sanctions, and the recommendations are not optional, an OVV spokesperson told the ANP. The minister has 6 months to respond.

In the meantime, VluchtelingenWerk said that conditions described in the report are “alarming.” The recommendations to the asylum minister “could not come a moment too soon and must be taken very seriously,” the orgnaization said.

VluchtelingenWerk said it recognizes the problems described by the OVV and has also raised them itself several times. The report “once again confirms this situation and raises the question of how many more reports must be written before structural measures are taken.”

The organization called on the minister to work with the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) and municipalities to “really follow the recommendations now” and put them into practice. “Every child has a right to a safe and healthy place to live.”