Exploring the Migration Process of Iranian Asylum Seekers in Europe: A Case of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Understanding the irregular migrants’ motivations for leaving their country of origin and their experiences in the host country have always been seen as an important topic in the field of migration studies. However, there is currently a gap in the literature on this subject area especially in the case of Iranian asylum seekers in Europe. Therefore, the current paper serves as a preliminary study for more comprehensive research that explores the migration process of Iranian asylum seekers in two main European transit countries based on semi-structured interviews. In total, there were 17 Iranian asylum seekers (M age = 36) recruited from Serbia (n = 8) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (n = 9). It explored their motivations for leaving Iran and the greatest difficulties they faced on their way to Europe. We found that the main motivations of Iranian asylum seekers for leaving Iran were due to the lack of job security, lack of social freedom, economic and political issues, family issues, and religious persecution respectively. All interviewees claimed that they did not have any idea about the difficulties faced by irregular migration when they were planning to leave Iran irregularly to Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Iranian
• irregular migrants
• asylum seekers
• transit countries
• refugee camp

View correction statement:

Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In both Serbia and Bosnia, they considered these reception centers as refugee camps, although people were not refugees but asylum seekers, therefore we use the term refugee camps throughout the paper.

2 A cross-border labor.

3 The third-largest Kurdish city in Iran.

4 The capital of Iran.

5 A city in the southwest of Iran.

6 Which is the democratic party of Iranian Kurdistan.

7 The second-largest province in Iran.

8 It was also difficult for the researchers to find enough empirical studies about freedom in Iran and we mainly relied on Human Rights Organizations’ updated reports.

9 Qom is considered a holy city in Shi’a Islam.

10 Sufism religion.

11 Religious reference experts.

12 A district in Tehran.

13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Dervish_protests.

14 A city in western Iran.

15 Iranian currency.