Subsidiary protection

When you have filed an asylum application and have not been granted the right to asylum or protection as a refugee, a review is done to see if you are entitled to subsidiary protection. 

This is possible if you fear serious harm in your country of origin: for example, if you are threatened with the death penalty, torture or inhumane and humiliating treatment or because you are threatened by war or civil war.

In contrast to protection as a refugee, acts of persecution do not have to be directed at a specific characteristic mentioned in the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in the case of subsidiary protection.

If you come from what is known as a secure country of origin (EU countries, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Senegal, Serbia), the German authorities will assume that you are not actually persecuted. In such cases, you will have to prove that you are indeed persecuted.