This International Women’s Day, dozens of women are on hunger strike at the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in the UK. As they protest against the government’s “offensive” immigration practices, like the detention of people who came to the UK as children and the detention of survivors of torture, these women—some of whom are themselves victims of sexual abuse and trafficking—are being held indefinitely at a privately operated facility that has a long history of accusations of sexual abuse by its staff. […]
Immigration detention
The Migrant Workers Convention: A Legal Tool to Safeguard Migrants Against Arbitrary Detention
Adopted in 1990 and in force since 2003, the UN Migrant Workers Convention is the most comprehensive international treaty in the field of migration and human rights. In this chapter, Mariette Grange details how the convention safeguards migrants against arbitrary detention. She explains, however, that as the convention has only been ratified by 51 states—none of which are industrialised, migrant-receiving countries—the full potential of the convention remains to be tested. […]
Immigration Detention in Norway: Fewer Asylum Seekers but More Deportees
Immigration Detention in Norway: While asylum applications are decreasing in Norway, the number of deportations is rising. Since 2012, when amendments to the Immigration Act were introduced extending the list of grounds for detention, detention has increasingly been used in order to make return policies more efficient. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of people placed […]
Immigration Detention in Lebanon: Deprivation of Liberty at the Frontiers of Global Conflict
Immigration detention in Lebanon: Although Lebanon does not consider itself a country of asylum, it has the world’s highest per-capita concentration of refugees, most of whom have fled conflict in neighbouring Syria. Refugees are increasingly treated as a security threat and economic burden, and they have found themselves under growing surveillance and restrictions. The country is […]
UN Child Rights Experts Call for EU-Wide Ban on Child Immigration Detention
Ahead of a key meeting of EU institutions and member states on issues relating to immigration and asylum, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued an urgent plea for EU countries to bring an end to the migration-related detention of children. “EU law should not allow for child immigration detention, even as a last […]
Open Letter from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Global Compact on Migration
In February 2018, with discussions under way at the United Nations on crafting a Global Compact on Migration, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released this open letter encouraging states to adhere to their commitment to develop “a compact that explicitly recognises and fully conforms to the existing international human rights framework as the authoritative protection agenda […]
Uneven Business: Privatisation of Immigration Detention in Europe
Europe reflects a variety of policy responses to the growth of the immigration control industry – from the privatisation of the management of entire immigration detention estates to keeping all detention facilities in official hands and employing private non-profit groups. In this chapter, Michael Flynn, Matthew Flynn, and Eryn Wagon detail the variety of levels and forms of privatisation adopted across the region, as well as the challenges that the outsourcing of immigration controls posits. […]
Immigration Detention in Greece
Immigration Detention in Greece (2018 Report) Greece is a key focus in Europe’s efforts to halt irregular migration flows. However, the country’s immigration detention laws and practices have been repeatedly denounced by observers, who have pointed to numerous abuses, including the systematic use of detention of vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers, the failure to apply alternatives […]
“Hotspots” (from report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 2017 visit to Italy)
1. Preliminary remarks; (Read full CPT report)11. As part of the response to assist frontline member States that are facing disproportionatemigratory pressures at the European Union’s external borders, European Union member states andinstitutions agreed in 2015 to implement the so-called “hotspot” approach to managing migration.5The “hotspot” approach aims at swiftly identifying, registering and properly processing […]
Foreign nationals detained under aliens legislation in Türkiye (From the report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 2017 visit to Türkiye)
Foreign nationals detained under aliens legislation; (Read full CPT report) 25. One of the main objectives of the visit was to examine the measures taken by the Turkish authorities in the light of the recommendations made by the CPT in the report on the June 2015 ad hoc visit which focussed on the situation of […]
