Next to Berlin and Bremen, Essen is one of the three cities in Germany with the biggest problems in clan crime. The NRW Ministry of the Interior was able to determine a significant decrease in criminal offenses in 2021, but there are always negative headlines, most recently in June after mass brawls in the Altendorf district. The city and the police have been trying for a long time to get the problem under control with a mixture of tough measures and a willingness to engage in dialogue.
Now the city is trying to prevent the young people from slipping into the clan scene by helping them to get a permanent perspective. By March, the youth welfare office in Germany had only approached 460 tolerated young people and young adults up to the age of 35 with a “Kurdish-Lebanese background”. Although they were born in Germany, their nationality is unknown, they have to have their residence permits extended regularly, this is referred to as a chain of toleration.
According to experts like the author Ralph Ghadban, many of their families may have originally come from the Kurdish regions of Turkey and, after spending several years in Lebanon, moved to Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. Their applications for asylum were rejected, but since they have no nationality, they could not be deported. Neither Turkey nor Lebanon want to take them in.
A residence permit would make life easier: Contracts for training, apartments or mobile phones are easier to conclude, young stateless people could plan a life in Germany and build a livelihood. In order to be able to take part in the model, however, certain requirements must be met: the participants must go to school regularly, have an apprenticeship position or a job. They must live in Essen for a longer period of time and be exempt from punishment. The Essen model is not an aid program for criminal clan members; rather, it aims to offer prospects to prevent them from slipping into the scene.
But interest is limited: only 57 of the 460 people addressed took the opportunity and are now in the Essen model. 19 of them already have a two-year residence permit. Eight others now have an ID card from their country of origin, giving them secure residence status outside of the model project.
However, 403 of the men and women approached did not take part in the Essen model: five did not report back, and 106 turned out not to be included in the project – for example because of previous convictions. At 53, the city is still talking. They want to see if these people could join at a later date, it said.
“140 young people stated in one-on-one interviews that they were not ‘interested’ in participating in the Essen model,” the city of Essen said at the request of WELT. “Most of them stated that they had no confidence in the success of interrupting the chain toleration. They reported that their families had failed in many attempts to obtain the necessary documents, that their parents and grandparents were hopeless, that they were incomprehensible and frustrated that these attempts to obtain a passport were not recognized and that their continued toleration status was therefore sealed.”
Some of those addressed also described conflicts within the family that prevented them from taking part: “Should it be possible to obtain proof of identity, possibly also a national passport, when participating in the Essen model, this would also have an impact on the identity clarification and passport procurement options of other family members, who would then fear being deported.”
Even if the numbers are sobering, the project should continue. The city hopes that those who have received an improvement in residence will send a signal to the community: they should show others that the authorities can be trusted and that working with them is worthwhile.
