Caritas demands more support for voluntary return project

For ten years Caritas Austria has been helping migrants whose hopes for a better life in Austria have not materialised to return to their home countries. To mark the occasion of this anniversary Caritas now presents the photo exhibition ‘On my way’ that highlights the situation of prospective returnees and also speaks out on current integration policy in Austria.

Refugees and migrants usually come to Austria with high hopes – hopes for a better life. However, these dreams are often shattered soon by fruitless attempts to find work, poor accommodation and, most of all, the feeling of loneliness in a foreign country. Having failed to make a new start in Austria, many migrants see return to their home country as their only alternative. Following its main maxim – all people should be able to have a perspective in life and to live without fear of the future – Caritas tries to help them. The Caritas Repatriation Assistance programme (Rückkehrhilfe) is co-funded by the European Return Fund and the Federal Ministry of the Interior.




For ten years the Caritas Repatriation Assistance team has been counselling migrants and has been helping those willing to return to their home country voluntarily to do so with dignity and with new perspectives. The programme was started at the turn of 1998-99 during the Bosnian crisis. ‘At a time when returning often meant handcuffs and adhesive tape the Caritas Repatriation Assistance was a groundbreaking, innovative programme,’ recalls Caritas Austria president Franz Küberl. Up until the end of August 2009 Caritas has counselled more than 16,300 people and helped 8,800 returnees make a new start in their home country. The majority of these clients – 7,900 migrants – turned to the Caritas of the Archdiocese Vienna for support. Around 5,000 of them were voluntary returnees. Last year most migrants who left for home from Vienna returned to Chechnya, Serbia and Kosovo.

Voluntary return with dignity

‘We are not a last-minute travel agency without a return ticket. We have an enormous responsibility here, and so every case has to be examined individually,” says Michael Landau, Caritas director of the Archdiocese Vienna. A comprehensive legal, social and country-specific assessment of perspectives is part of repatriation assistance. ‘People must never be sent back to their death,’ adds Landau, and so there are also cases where Caritas advises against returning home. Often, returnees are not exactly welcomed back with open arms in poor countries. Caritas provides support so that these arms won’t remain folded.

The ERSO network (European Reintegration Support Organisations), set up in 2007, now comprises ten repatriation assistance organisations in Europe, including Caritas Austria. Cooperation between them makes it easier to support people making a new start in their home countries with the help of local partners.

Repatriation assistance as a building block of migration policy

Caritas president Küberl is convinced that, ‘Repatriation assistance is an important building block in Austrian and European migration policy.’ However, support could be provided more efficiently, he adds. For Küberl, repatriation assistance also includes educational and training options for returnees, be it computer or language courses or similar opportunities. ‘Every ounce of education improves reintegration back home,’ he insists.

At the moment the Ministry of the Interior grants a maximum reintegration bonus of 370 euro per returnee. Küberl calls for a reintegration fund that would allow granting up to 1,000 euro to individuals in cases of particular hardship. Besides, he points out that ‘helping returnees is the right thing to do not only from a social but also from an economic point of view.’ ‘Deportation costs more than repatriation,’ he emphasises, appealing to the politicians in charge to shift their position and adopt a more humane view.

Avoiding a revolving-door effect

Removing people from a country against their will and without any perspective for their future may lead to the so-called revolving-door effect: they are likely to try to come back to Austria. ‘No matter how high the fences, you cannot stop migration,’ says Küberl. For him the solution lies in fighting hardship on a global level: ‘The European Union must make the worldwide fight against poverty a priority on its agenda.”

„On my way“

The exhibition ‘On my way’ presents photos taken by five returnees from India, Kosovo, Moldova, Nepal and Serbia that show them ‘on their way’ back to their respective home countries. The photos convey an authentic, striking and honest impression of their life situation, showing them before, during and after their return. They have photographed everyday situations like common meals as well as dismal housing conditions far away from home.