Vulnerability identification in the asylum procedure According to Article 77 (3) of the Asylum Code: ‘During the Reception and Identification procedure or the border procedure of art. 95 of this law, the Receiving Authorities or the Decision Authorities and especially the Regional Asylum Offices or the Autonomous Asylum Units shall refer the applicant for international protection to doctors of Public Hospitals or Public Mental Health Institutions or other contracted physicians or the Medical Screening and Psychosocial Support Unit of the RIC for the vulnerability assessment under the Article 41 of this law. Upon the completion of medical and psychosocial assessment, the Unit, acting on a written motivated proposal, shall inform the Head of the competent RAO. The above-mentioned proposal is also notified to the Manager of the RIC. That assessment shall have as only consequence the immediate provision of special reception conditions and special procedural guarantees to the applicant.’ According to Article 80 (3) of the Asylum Code ‘[i] In case of doubt, the competent Receiving Authorities shall refer the unaccompanied minor to the age assessment procedures as per the provisions in force. In case the above-mentioned referral is considered necessary and until the completion of the procedure, special attention should be paid to the particular characteristics of the minor, especially those related to their gender or cultural peculiarities.’ Article 72(1) of the Asylum Code provides that ‘[t]The Receiving Authorities shall assess within a reasonable time after the application for international protection is lodged or at any point of the procedure the relevant need arises, whether the applicant requires special procedural guarantees as a consequence, inter alia, of age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, mental disorders or as a consequence of torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence’. According to Article 72(3) of the Asylum Code ‘When adequate support cannot be provided [to the applicants] within the framework of the accelerated procedure (art. 83 (9) IPA) and border procedure (art. 90 IPA), especially when the applicant needs to be provided with special procedural guarantees as a consequence of torture, rape or other forms of serious psychological, physical or sexual violence, the abovementioned procedures do not apply or cease to apply […]’. Also, according to Article 62 (5) of the Asylum Code ‘[i]n case the competent Authorities identify victims of human trafficking, they are obliged to inform as soon as possible the National System of Recognition and Referral of Victims of Human Trafficking in accordance with the Articles 76 and 79 L. 4781/2021’. Despite these provisions, the shortage of medical and psychosocial care makes it extremely complicated and sometimes impossible for people seeking asylum to be (re-)assessed during that process. Following the medical and psychosocial assessment, the medical psychosocial unit of the RIC should inform the competent RAO or AAU of the Asylum Service. As mentioned above, due to significant gaps in the provision of reception and identification procedures in 2023, owing to a significant understaffing of EODY units and other issues, GCR has found that for a considerable number of applicants the asylum procedure was initiated without a proper medical screening and/or a psychosocial assessment having been concluded. Accordingly, where vulnerability is not identified before the asylum procedure, the initiation of a vulnerability assessment and further referral for vulnerability identification depends to a great extent on the discretion of the caseworker. However, according to GCR’s observations, the referral for further medical/psychosocial screening by the caseworker after the first instance interview before the competent RAO is not common practice. Also, according to GCR’s knowledge, the understaffing of State authorities in combination with the constant pressure to process more asylum applications more quickly, resulted in a serious undermining of procedural legal safeguards and thus to decisions of poor quality and unjustified rejections in many cases. GCR has documented, from reports from the field, many cases in which the asylum interview took place before the medical examination of the asylum seeker, thus impacted negatively on the outcome of the asylum cases. 135