No way to find home: common stories of Eritreans in Italy and the Netherlands
Refugees cannot start a new life if they are not allowed to create homes for themselves.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryThe aspirations and vulnerabilities of migrants in VentimigliaMigration policy can exact a human cost, but it rarely breaks migrants’ will to aspire.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryHow counsellors convince asylum seekers to accept ‘voluntary return’Rejected asylum seekers are often told they can be deported or go home willingly. But are these really the only options?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery‘You feel like in prison here’: imagining a future in Lebanon through Syrian eyesSometimes keeping going is the only way refugees maintain hope.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryOnce displaced, always on the move? Life aspirations of refugees in TurkeyMigrants are known for their movement, but most are usually looking for a place to stop moving.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryStuck in a Greek hotspot: when getting out is more important than where to go nextRefugee ‘hotspots’ are holding pens, not processing centres, and some people will do anything to escape them.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryHow do refugees' aspirations and vulnerabilities interact?ROUNDTABLE: Refugees dream about their future in order to give shape and meaning to their journeys, yet this often...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryHow do migration policies affect the life aspirations of displaced populations?ROUNDTABLE: Refugees dream about their future in order to give shape and meaning to their journeys, yet this often...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryHow do refugees adapt to realise their aspirations for (im)mobility?ROUNDTABLE: Refugees dream about their future in order to give shape and meaning to their journeys, yet this often...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryThe refugees who dare to aspireRefugees dream about their future in order to give shape and meaning to their journeys, yet this often counts...
EXPERT DISCUSSION
After the 'migration crisis': how Europe works to keep Africans in Africa
EXPERT DISCUSSION
This discussion was financially supported by Humanity United.
Migration from Africa to Europe has, since the long summer of migration in 2015, been at the top of the European political agenda. As right-wing parties have gained at the ballot box through their anti-migration rhetoric, the priority for most policymakers has been to look tough and – above all – to prevent such an experience from ever happening again.
To this end, the European Union and individual EU member states have devoted large amounts of resources to trying to keep people in Africa. One usually speaks of carrots and sticks, but given the sheer scale and variety of interventions it might be more appropriate to speak of bushels of the former and bundles of the latter. As this feature demonstrates in great detail, an awful lot has been going on.
Being based in Europe, we are generally only exposed to European accounts of what is happening and why it is happening when it comes to migration. In order to break through our own filter bubble, we set out to explore the question of migration from a more African perspective. This feature is the result of that endeavour.
What projects have been happening, and how have they affected African communities? How have African states balanced European demands with domestic pressures and priorities? How do African policymakers and citizens even understand migration? What are their own migration agendas? And how can Europe and Africa reset the conversation on migration to the benefit of all? These are just a few of the many questions we asked our seventeen participants, and time and time again their answers surprised us and brought nuance to what is all too often a one-sided conversation. Producing this feature has been an enormous learning experience for us, and we warmly encourage you to explore its many pages in the hope that it will be for you too. Read on...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryChild workers need rights, not policing, to weather the pandemicThe development community wants to help child workers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, but unless it rethinks...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryShutting down India’s red-light districts won’t contain coronavirusClosing brothels in India would be a grand but empty gesture. It will only hide the state’s abandonment of migrants...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryCOVID-19 illuminates discriminatory sex work policiesScotland, Ireland and New Zealand have dealt with sex workers very differently during the pandemic, and the results...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery"We are still waiting" – protesting under lockdown in South AfricaSouth Africa has seen its first protests under lockdown. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need to understand...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryItaly’s fight against Covid-19 depends on continued solidarityItaly’s inhabitants have so far trusted the government’s emergency response, but inequality and a lack of resources...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryThere's no human trafficking or migrant smuggling without organised crime, the law says – and that mattersCritics often say that the international law on human trafficking and migrant smuggling has failed. But perhaps we...
EXPERT DISCUSSION
How can advocates effectively speak about and argue for decriminalised sex work?
New Zealand Prostitutes Collective
The Red Van
Emily Kenway
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
English Collective of Prostitutes
Women With A Vision
COYOTE RI
Kate D'Adamo
Polina Bachlakova
Ava Caradonna
Empower Foundation
Warrior Women’s Association of Brazil
AMMAR Cordoba Argentina
This discussion was financially supported by Humanity United.
What is the best strategy for ensuring that people who sell sex are protected? Should the state ban it entirely? Should it allow the sale of sex but not its purchase, as the increasingly widespread ‘Nordic’ model does? Or decriminalise it altogether? These questions are endlessly repeated, but for sex workers themselves the debate is long over: only decriminalisation increases their safety. We believe them, so this is where our new series begins.
We invited sex workers and their allies around the world to share their experiences advocating for decriminalisation on openDemocracy. We also sought out stories from organisations that used to oppose decriminalising sex work but now support it. Our goal was to find out what works, what doesn’t and how it can be done better.
The response exceeds all our expectations. Sex workers and migrants have been organising against exploitation and abuse for a very long time, so any conversation about different strategies should prioritise their expertise and experience.
Happy reading!
Cameron Thibos
Managing Editor, Beyond Trafficking and Slavery
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryDebunking ‘Super Bowl sex trafficking’Effective outreach changed how the media reported on ‘sex trafficking’ for the 2018 Super Bowl. Will the lesson stick?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryDo not dismiss the voices of returned migrants: a response to the IOMPolicies in practice are rarely the same as they are on paper. The IOM would do well to remember that.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryLessons from Bangladesh: six actions to take forward the Global Compact on RefugeesThe Global Compact on Refugees was a step forward on paper. Now we have to make it work.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryDespite progress gender-based violence and harassment is still a reality for global garment workersOnly putting workers in charge of enforcement will shift the needle.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryThe debts of undocumented Vietnamese migrants in EuropeDebt and trafficking were used to explain why 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in a lorry in Essex, but whom...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryLGBTQI+ asylum claimants face extreme social isolation in GermanyLGBTQI+ people seeking asylum in Germany are isolated, inadequately housed, and at risk of violence.
Inside Beyond Trafficking and Slavery
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Research as more than extraction?
Knowledge production and sexual violence in post conflict African societies
Edited by Annie Bunting, Allen Kiconco and Joel Quirk
Whenever knowledge about sexual violence gets produced we need to inquire about the story behind its collection and dissemination. How is knowledge produced? Who benefits? Who pays? Who speaks? To what kinds of audience?
Organising precarious workers in the Global South
To ‘organise the unorganised’ has always been a challenge for the trade union movement, yet unions across the Global South now recognise that their future depends on engaging with these ‘non-traditional’ layers.
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryAfter the 'migration crisis': how Europe works to keep Africans in AfricaSince 2016 the EU has intervened massively into African affairs in order to prevent further migration. But has it...
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryThe fight to decriminalise sex workCOVID-19 threatens both the lives and livelihoods of sex workers yet governments look the other way. A new...
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and SlaverySex workers’ response to the pandemic proves they aren’t society’s victimsSex workers have long been portrayed as victims of patriarchy and trafficking, but their quick mobilisation to...
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and SlaveryCOVID-19 shines a red light on sex workers’ lack of protection in EuropeEuropean governments look the other way when we ask them how they will help sex workers survive the coming weeks and...
