Hilfe zwischen Abschreckung und Profit.

Abstract

With the recent influx of asylum seekers, also the number of refugee shelters in Berlin has risen over the past year. On the one hand, the installation of new facilities was a necessary measure to avoid homelessness. On the other hand, putting refugees into camps and group facilities has been an integral part of the restrictive asylum policy aiming at deterrence. Many of these refugee camps are run as a lucrative business by private companies . Social workers working in these camps, employed by the enterprises and paid by the state, act in an institutional context that is full of contradictions and conflicting interests. Their own aspiration to ‘help’ and serve the idea of ‘human rights’ can clash with requirements of control and restriction. Social Workers’ possibilities to reject such unwanted functionalization are limited, because of their institutional dependence, the prevailing legal regulations and their weak representation of interests, among other factors.