Social Entrepreneurship for Refugees “in Transit”: Opportunities and Developments in Serbia

The opportunities offered by social entrepreneurship for the integration of refugees and asylum seekers, together with its challenges, have long attracted the attention of scholars and policymakers. In response to this increasing interest, EU institutions and Member States have started promoting the adoption of legislative and policy frameworks that facilitate and support such initiatives. In Serbia, the difficult and at times painful transition towards the market economy, together with the persistent political obstacles to European integration, has certainly hindered the blossom of social entrepreneurship. However, something has started moving towards the development of a political and economic environment more favourable towards these activities, also thanks to EU-funded programmes. At the same time, the closure of the migrants’ organised corridor in 2016 and the consequent growth of the number of asylum applications in Serbia highlighted the need for moving from an exclusively humanitarian or securitarian approach in the management of the migration flows towards a strategy aimed at social integration. However, little has been done in this sense at the institutional level, and Serbia is still largely considered a “transit country”. In this context, numerous NGOs, local associations and individuals have mobilised to support asylum seekers in their trip to Western Europe and during their stay, either long or short, in Serbia. Departing from one of these initiatives, the social enterprise Women on the Way, a sustainable fashion brand based in Belgrade that provides work opportunities to refugee women, this chapter analyses the opportunities and challenges of promoting social entrepreneurship for the integration of asylum seekers and refugees in Serbia, through the analysis of a series of interviews conducted with the personnel of Women on the Way, social workers, activists and asylum seekers.