Further, while some participants interviewed on the subject confirmed they had registered for a COVID-19
vaccine, at the time of our interviews, none had been vaccinated. As of 28 October 2021, our sources
confirmed that vaccinations still had not been administered in the PRDC. Messan explained:
“This month, the police started to issue papers for vaccinations. However, there is no specific date or anything for
the vaccinations, two people have already been to the police office, but they just signed a paper, they did not get
vaccinated. We don’t know when we will be vaccinated, it might be soon but it might as well not be soon”.
This fact was similarly confirmed by the PRDC doctor. During our meeting with him, he told Equal Rights
that only 26 out of 180 persons in the PRDC had registered for the vaccine and he was not confident that
the Greek National Public Health authority (EODY), the authority responsible for administering the vaccine,
would come for such a small number of people.
The low number of vaccine registrations reflects, as we understand, fears regarding the vaccine’s safety or
a lack of accurate information regarding its risks and benefits. In the summer of 2021, UNHCR distributed
information flyers about the vaccine to detainees. However, this has not appeared to have a major impact on
people’s vaccination decisions. Emmanuel told us: “I have not registered for the vaccine, even though they gave us
the paper for it. I am scared, I don’t know how it’ll work”. Similarly, Rashid reported: “I refused to register my name
because I’m not sure what type of injection I’ll have and I’m not sure what type of side effect I could have after getting the
injection…most of us refused to get it, no one explained what sort of injection we’re going to get, or more details about the
injection”. Mado told us that she did not require a vaccination, as she did not have COVID-19, while Hana
described other detainees’ wider attitudes towards the vaccine “I am registered for vaccinations but many people
think that maybe they will poison us so a lot of people start rejecting the vaccinations”. Yacouba also reported that
some of his fellow detainees were reluctant to register for the vaccine as, based on the information they were
provided by the authorities, they were fearful that doing so may prolong their period of detention: “They asked
us if we wanted to get the vaccine, and said we have to stay here and get a vaccination card if we do, and if we can only
be liberated if we don’t want it. So a lot of people said they didn’t want it”. It appears that several detainees, then, are
fearful of being vaccinated due to a lack of accurate and reliable public health and legal information.
10. Inadequate Conditions for Vulnerable Persons
As described in Section 2, we have observed that persons detained on Kos often do not undergo any
vulnerability assessment,284 that vulnerable people are routinely detained, and that measures intended to
safeguard vulnerable people are almost never implemented. The following subsections explore the detention
conditions for certain vulnerable groups identified during our research as well as three groups—single
women, persons who are LGBTI, and shipwreck survivors—who are not legally categorised as vulnerable
but, in our experience, often have had experiences based on their identities that would make them eligible for
certain protections.
a. SGBV survivors
Five participants in this report, all single women, are known to be SGBV survivors. Two of these participants
have claims for asylum based on experiences of SGBV, while three participants have disclosed histories of
SGBV during their interviews for this report, or over the course of their interactions with us. Some of these
women expressed experiencing fear, discomfort, and unease at being in proximity to unknown men while in
284 According to Art. 58(2) L. 4636/2019, authorities are to conduct an “assessment of vulnerability” during the identification process
for all asylum seekers, without prejudice to the assessment of their international protection needs.
57
DETENTION OF MIGRANTS ON THE ISLAND OF KOS
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents