70% of refugees in Ecuador do not know the asylum process, according to survey

Of the 170 thousand people who have sought refuge in Ecuador since 2003, 70% claim to have had one or more difficulties to access to the process, according to a survey by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The lack of information about the procedure and the impossibility to cover the costs involved in traveling to the cities where the offices of the Refuge Direction are located are among the causes indicated by people in refugee status as difficulties for accessing the asylum.

The current refuge legislation provides that there is a period of 15 days to request this rights before the Chancellery. After this time there is an automatic rejection to the procedure rigged to an expulsion order.