A step forward towards ending immigration detention in Spain
This blog post was written by Nacho Hernández Moreno, lawyer at the International Affairs Department at Fundación Cepaim, Spain. The world is currently facing one of the most dramatic and fast [...]
EU gender equality strategy risks leaving out millions of people
The EU’s much anticipated Gender Equality Strategy for 2020-2025, released on 5 March, is an important step up for the EU on gender equality. But without addressing parallel policy agendas that [...]
Amplifying the voices of undocumented people in Europe
This blog post was written by PICUM’s Communications Trainee Bettina Guigui. As a migrant working for a migrants’ rights organisation in Brussels, I am very aware of the need to include the [...]
That time when British and Irish youth rights campaigners met in Dublin
At PICUM, we’re happy to facilitate bilateral exchanges between our members so they can learn from each other’s work to advance the rights of undocumented people locally. In this blog [...]
Momentum builds towards ending detention of children
By Pablo Gómez-Escolar Arias, PICUM Advocacy Trainee. Pour lire le texte en français: cliquez ici The immigration detention of children is an issue that is increasingly in the public [...]
“Firewall”: A tool for safeguarding fundamental rights of undocumented migrants
By Camille Van Durme, PICUM Intern. 19 December 2017 In December, several news outlets reported that a pregnant woman who went to the police in the UK to report having been raped was brought to a [...]
Immigration Detention and Deportation: Legal Practitioners and Civil Society Jointly Address Strategic Litigation
By Kadri Soova, PICUM Advocacy Officer and Alyna Smith, PICUM Advocacy Officer Over the past years, political pressure to detain and deport more migrants has led to more case law that challenges [...]
ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2017
BUILDING ON COLLECTIVE STRENGTH TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES By Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber, PICUM Communications Officer. Para leer la versión en español, por favor haga clic AQUI. Pour lire le blog en [...]
The Employers Sanctions Directive – a law to address exploitation of undocumented workers?
By Jan Knockaert, Director of OR.C.A. – Organisation for Undocumented Workers and a Board member of PICUM-the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. Adapted from [...]
Will more and longer detention solve the ‘migration crisis’?
By Jerome Phelps, Director of Detention Action. This is a shortened version of the original blog published by University of Oxford, Faculty of Law, Border Criminologies Blog. Earlier this month, [...]
Dealbreaker: EU migration policy causes more harm and chaos one year after EU-Turkey deal
By Michele LeVoy, PICUM Director. This was first published by Open Democracy. As we mark the first anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, the EU’s migration policies are more contradictory than ever. [...]
Risks of statelessness for children of undocumented parents in Europe
By Lilana Keith, Advocacy Officer on Children’s Rights and Labour Rights at PICUM. A version of this article was first published in the Institute on Statelessness and [...]
HEAR OUR VOICES’ – UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE FROM ACROSS EUROPE SHARE THEIR STORIES
Ahead of Universal Children’s Day on 20 November 2016, PICUM launches a collection of testimonies*, which highlights the challenges faced by children and young people considered irregular or [...]
PICUM ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2016: HOPE AND COMMITMENT IN POLARISED DEBATE
By Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber, PICUM Communications Officer. A fear-mongering rhetoric linking undocumented migrants to criminal activities and security threats, is fueling policies aiming to deter [...]
EU referendum: the fight for migrants’ rights goes on
By Carolina Gottardo, Director of the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) and former PICUM board member. This blog was originally published by Migrant Right’s Network on 26 June [...]
PICUM Expert Roundtable: Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services as Part of the Right to Health Care
By Tara Ohl, PICUM Trainee and Alyna Smith, PICUM Advocacy Officer Among the obstacles undocumented migrants face in realising their fundamental rights are the multiple barriers to access health [...]
Unlocking Detention – A ‘virtual tour’ of the UK’s immigration detention estate
By Eiri Ohtani, Project Director, Detention Forum, UK. How do you explain immigration detention to people who have never been to any detention centres? This was the starting point of Detention [...]
Undocumented and Coming of Age: What lessons can Europe draw from the USA?
By Pauline Chomel (PICUM intern), And Lilana Keith (PICUM Advocacy Officer). What are the daily realities of undocumented migrant youth coming of age? What challenges do their face in their [...]
PICUM Task Force on Legal Strategies Discusses Access to Justice and Redress Mechanisms for Undocumented Migrant
By Maria Giovanna Manieri, PICUM Programme Officer. PICUM held the fourth meeting of its Task Force on Legal Strategies in Brussels on 3 December 2015. At the meeting, participants were asked to [...]
International Migrants’ Day – Changing the Narrative
By Michele LeVoy, PICUM Director. Dear colleagues and friends, Today we commemorate International Migrants’ Day, and at the same time, a year comes to an end in which irregular migration has [...]
Bad news for UK government – Labour exploitation is rising and its anti-slavery measures are currently falling well short
By Don Flynn, Director Migrants’ Rights Network and PICUM Chair. This blog was first published by Migrants’ Rights Network on 2 November 2015. Victims of exploitative employers or [...]
Why we need to talk about ‘migrants’
By Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber, PICUM Communications Officer, And Lilana Keith, PICUM Interim Programmes Director. This blog was first published by La Strada International, Newsletter Issue 38, [...]
Migrant crisis: Inept leaders lay foundations of future unrest
By Edel McGinley, Director of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) and member of the board of PICUM. This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner on 24 August 2015 Making the hazardous [...]
PICUM Annual Workshop: Challenging Criminalisation of Undocumented Migrants
By Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber, PICUM Communications Officer. Images of migrants sleeping in tents alongside an imposing line of police cars in Calais, France; an airport security x-ray in Ceuta [...]
The gaps in EU policies on migration, trafficking and victims’ protection
By Cécilia Rolland, And Kadri Soova. Following the launch of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) report “Severe labour exploitation: workers moving within or into the European Union. [...]
Restricting access to the NHS for undocumented migrants is bad policy at high cost
By Lilana Keith, PICUM And Ewout van Ginneken, Berlin University of Technology. This article was first published by BMJ on 16 June 2015. The shocking loss of life among migrants crossing the [...]
PICUM Publishes Position Paper on ‘EU Return Directive’ Following First Working Group Meeting on EU Migration Policies
By Maria Giovanna Manieri, PICUM Programme Officer. Following the unprecedented loss of an estimated 1,600 migrant lives in the Mediterranean in the first months of this year, heads of EU [...]
Migrants in the Mediterranean: mourning deaths, not saving lives
By Maria Giovanna Manieri and Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber. This article was first published by OpenSecurity on 23 February 2015. For as long as the humanitarian impulse to rescue the desperate and [...]
‘Istanbul Convention’ – How Civil Society Can Engage in the Monitoring Process
By Eve Geddie, PICUM Programmes Director. The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) has great potential to [...]
PICUM Working Group on Access to Health Care for Undocumented Migrants
By Lilana Keith, PICUM Programme Officer. Focus on: children’s health, local and regional service provision and strategies for the UK How can we drive change at EU and national level so that all [...]
Why a rights-based approach to migrant children? The case of undocumented children and families
By Lilana Keith, PICUM Programme Officer. The current approach to migrant children is piecemeal, focusing on protecting certain categories of children, such as unaccompanied, asylum seeking, [...]
