A total of 44 percent of asylum seekers residing at migrant centers often go hungry, whereas an astonishing 90 percent lack access to nutritious food, OsloMet, a university in Oslo metropolitan area, found after interviewing 205 adult residents at eight asylum centers in southeastern Norway last year.
"In a country like Norway, it's worrisome that such a large portion [of asylum seekers] claim to have difficulty acquiring enough food," researcher Sigrid Henjum told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
The study also found that asylum center residents ate much less, and less-varied, food than most Norwegians. Fresh food including fruit, vegetables, meat, milk and dairy products were particularly absent from the diet of refugees waiting for their asylum applications to be processed.
According to the rules, all the residents must buy their own food and prepare it at the respective facilities where they live. To cover the cost of all essentials, including food, clothing, transport, telephone and such items as shampoo or toothpaste, asylum seekers are granted NOK 2,447 ($302) per person on a monthly basis. Those whose asylum applications have been rejected receive a much smaller benefit, since they're expected to leave the country.
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Local asylum center leader Ruth Kielland claimed that according to her observations most of the residents eat a lot of pasta and rice because it's cheap.
"Especially the young men, who don't set food as their highest priority," Kielland said. "Like most other young men, they would like to fit in, have some clothes." According to Kielland, the smoking habit, which in their case appears part of the little social life they have, is also demanding in terms of money spent.
According to Henjum's fellow OsloMet researcher Laura Terragni, single men living in asylum centers were the most vulnerable category, as many have a hard time shopping for groceries and planning the meals. Additionally, many male asylum seekers lack cooking skills whatsoever, as the kitchen duties in their home countries are most often performed by women. The situation is somewhat better for families, but still 20 percent said they were occasionally hungry.
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