Sophie Kloos
Address: Rue Charles Martel 8, 1000, BelgiumEmail: info@asylos.eu
www.facebook.com/asylos.research
twitter.com/asylos_
www.linkedin.com/company/1238177/ 
Specialist areas of work and services:
Description:
We are an innovative NGO, mobilising the power of a volunteer network to produce country-of-origin research to document and substantiate asylum claims
Experience, Background and Services:
Our reports cover a wide range of topics relevant to individuals seeking protection, including but not limited to trafficking-related claims. The evidence we provide plays an essential role in corroborating the credibility of an asylum seeker’s testimony and in informing adjudicators of the strength of an individual’s claim to protection.
Our 120 volunteers bring fluency in 25+ languages, investigative research and technology skills, regional expertise, and a network of contacts on the ground. In the past five years alone, we have produced over 400 exhaustively-documented, region-specific research briefs on 83 countries. Our research has helped hundreds of refugees in Belgium, UK, France, Sweden, Germany, Greece, and also Israel, Canada, USA and other host nations. Our reports are regularly quoted in court decisions. They have been used by UNHCR to inform UN eligibility guidelines, have been submitted as evidence in the 2018 UK Country Guidance on Afghanistan and have been referenced by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), as well as several European government agencies and NGOs.
The services that we offer include:
- bespoke case-based COI research for your client
Quality COI research can make or break an asylum application. We help lawyers and caseworkers in any country of arrival support their clients' case by producing individualised reports on specific human rights situations in refugee countries of origin. From political or religious persecution to trafficking to access to medical care, if the information is out there, we will find it.
- a database of prior reports covering a wide range of subjects and countries
All our anonymised reports are contained within our database, accessible to lawyers and caseworkers assisting asylum-seekers through their legal procedure. With almost 400 reports produced in the last 4 years, it is the only database of its kind intended to explicitly help asylum-seekers provide evidence of their claim.
- strategic reports, covering significant gaps in the existing literature
Our public Strategic Reports aim to address the needs of groups of asylum-seekers whose cases are under-documented in media and international reports. We identify strategic gaps in the COI and seek out new authoritative sources to fill them. Our most recently published strategic report from May 2019 is titled "Albania: trafficked boys and young men"; the next trafficking-related report will be published in the coming months.
- Armed Conflict & Military
- Begging
- Child Marriage
- Domestic Servitude
- Forced Criminality
- Forced Labour
- Forced Marriage
- Organ Trafficking
- Prostitution & Sex Slavery
- Sale of Children
- Sex Trafficking
Description:
We are an innovative NGO, mobilising the power of a volunteer network to produce country-of-origin research to document and substantiate asylum claims
Experience, Background and Services:
Our reports cover a wide range of topics relevant to individuals seeking protection, including but not limited to trafficking-related claims. The evidence we provide plays an essential role in corroborating the credibility of an asylum seeker’s testimony and in informing adjudicators of the strength of an individual’s claim to protection.
Our 120 volunteers bring fluency in 25+ languages, investigative research and technology skills, regional expertise, and a network of contacts on the ground. In the past five years alone, we have produced over 400 exhaustively-documented, region-specific research briefs on 83 countries. Our research has helped hundreds of refugees in Belgium, UK, France, Sweden, Germany, Greece, and also Israel, Canada, USA and other host nations. Our reports are regularly quoted in court decisions. They have been used by UNHCR to inform UN eligibility guidelines, have been submitted as evidence in the 2018 UK Country Guidance on Afghanistan and have been referenced by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), as well as several European government agencies and NGOs.
The services that we offer include:
- bespoke case-based COI research for your client
Quality COI research can make or break an asylum application. We help lawyers and caseworkers in any country of arrival support their clients' case by producing individualised reports on specific human rights situations in refugee countries of origin. From political or religious persecution to trafficking to access to medical care, if the information is out there, we will find it.
- a database of prior reports covering a wide range of subjects and countries
All our anonymised reports are contained within our database, accessible to lawyers and caseworkers assisting asylum-seekers through their legal procedure. With almost 400 reports produced in the last 4 years, it is the only database of its kind intended to explicitly help asylum-seekers provide evidence of their claim.
- strategic reports, covering significant gaps in the existing literature
Our public Strategic Reports aim to address the needs of groups of asylum-seekers whose cases are under-documented in media and international reports. We identify strategic gaps in the COI and seek out new authoritative sources to fill them. Our most recently published strategic report from May 2019 is titled "Albania: trafficked boys and young men"; the next trafficking-related report will be published in the coming months.
