The participants from Poland part of project ”Entrepreneurship 4 Integration” wrote an article about the sitation of refugees in their countries. Enjoy reading!
Every year more and more people are settling down on Poland. These migrants come mostly from the Eastern Europe. According to the Central Statistical Office in Poland in the end of 2019 were living more than 2.1 milion of migrants (around 5.5% of the Polish population). Most of them are from Ukraine (1.3 mln), Belarus (0.1 mln) and Germany. They come to Poland to study, gain experience, earn money and develop themselves.
However, when it comes to refugees the picture is not that rosy. Since 1992 to 2018 Poland issued only 4875 refugees statuses. This number stands for 2-4% of the applicants. Most of the refugees that settled in Poland come from Russia, Georgia and Ukraine, they run away from inner wars and conflicts. These people may stay in a special building. There are 11 such places in Poland, all of them are located in small towns near the Eastern boarder.
In general, the Polish people don’t want the refugees to come and the government uses them as a thread to get votes in elections. There are several reasons why the Polish people don’t accept refugees, for example: political influence, religious and cultural differences, they don’t want to be “the second Germany”, terrorism, illnesses, they don’t want to be treated as a “transit country”, they are afraid of losing jobs and teritory.
Recently there was a poll that says that around 77% of the people want to help the refugees, also, the young people are more willing to help so let’s keep our fingers crossed that the situation with refugees in Poland will change soon and people will accept them.