The Estonian Social Affairs Ministry will end the activity of the asylum seekers' center located in the Illuka rural community in the East-Viru County starting from April 12, but AS Hoolekandeteenused (Care Services Ltd) will continue reception services of the asylum seekers until 2014.
The Social Affairs Ministry has circulated a minister's draft regulation, in accordance with which the Illuka Aslym seekers' center will wind up its operations from April. On ending the activity of the public institution it is necessary to lay off the posts of manager of the reception center and of the social worker.
In the middle of last November the Social Affairs Ministry declared the winner of the reception center asylum services AS Hoolekandeteenused, which will move the asylum center to Vao Village in the Vaike-Maarja rural community in the West-Viru County, where the Aavere care home recently became empty.
In Vao Village it will be possible to accommodate people in two to three-room apartments where it is possible to live more privately. It has been planned to accommodate up to 35 people in the reception center.
Aleksander Ljudvig, deputy chancellor for social issues at the Social Affairs Ministry, said in a covering letter to the bill that if until the present most of the asylum-seekers had been men, then in the two past years there are increasingly more women and children among them, and providing opportunities of development, orderly rooms and parents, the opportunitiy of social communication, the school and the kindergarten are not enough.
"It is also necessary to take into consideration the possible traumatic experiences in the past, which presumes access to a psychologist, psychiatrist or a specialist doctor. The present conditions of the reception center do not always bear in mind the religious or cultural background, and it is not possible to provide the necessary conditions for children with families," Ljudvig said.
Former Social Affairs Minister Hanno Pevkur has said that the ministry started reorganization of the refugee center due to various recommendations, so the Human Rights Center has criticized the location of the center and the services provided there.
The asylum seekers' reception center has been located at Illuka since 1998.
Although Estonia is in the last place among the number asylum seekers in the European Union, their number has recently considerably increased. Last year Estonia received 73 applications, in 2011 66 and in 2010 30 applications for asylum. During the past decade Estonia received 7 - 14 asylum applications a year.