Taking Action for Migrants: AMUMRA revives global calls against the EU Directive to expel undocumented migrants
On August 28, AMUMRA, an organisation of migrants and refugees in Argentina, held a demonstration in Buenos Aires against the European Union’s Returns Directive, showing continued global anger at the Directive, which seeks to ban migrants found in Europe without documents from returning to the continent for five years.
“This protest is our obligation, because to accept the EU Returns Directive, or the absence of an action to oppose it, would imply our assent,” says Natividad Obeso, president of AMUMRA.
“This Directive leaves it open to Governments to severely violate the rights of migrants in Europe, while superficially seeking to make the system better,” said Zoe Bake-Paterson of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, an international umbrella body of migrant and anti-trafficking groups.
“We support communities in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania who are rightfully outraged by this legislation that does nothing to address the root causes of migration without documents,” she added.
AMUMRA is lobbying the President of Argentina, Dr. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, to call on European ambassadors and consulates to assist and protect migrants; to inform the population about the EU Directive; and to declare that AMUMRA’s mobilisation against the EU Directive is an act taken in the public interest.
The EU Returns Directive, approved by the European Parliament on 18 June 2008, purports to regulate and legalize the return (or expulsion) of irregular and undocumented migrants from the 27 countries of the European Union. Countries in the EU have two years to implement the Directive through national laws and policy.
The Directive is said to be created in accordance with international law, including human rights protections, but has been criticised globally for violating human rights.
By allowing the detention of unaccompanied minors, the Directive violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In setting a common standard for the detention of undocumented migrants for up to 18 months, the Directive contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that the detention of undocumented migrants is only permitted where action is being taken towards removal or deportation. The act of migration is not a crime, and to detain undocumented migrants for a lengthy period of 18 months is unlawful.
Additional concerns include the re-entry ban, barring migrants who have been deported from one European Union country from entering any of the 27 countries for a period of five years, and the lack of procedural safe guards in the Directive.
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GAATW is a network spanning five continents of more than 90 organizations committed to ending trafficking and to the protection of the human rights of trafficked persons and women migrant workers. It is a non-governmental organization in special consultative status with ECOSOC (the UN Economic and Social Council).
