5,019
Immigration detainees
2019
145
Detained children
2017
25,500,000
Population
2020
With one of the largest migration detention systems, Turkey has long served as Europe's reluctant refugee gatekeeper ... and sometimes strong-armed enforcer, as Afghan refugees have recently experienced.
Not Available
Immigration detainees
2020
Not Available
Detained children
2020
31,334
New asylum applications
2020
84,300,000
Population
2020
Morocco has long prided itself for defending the rights of non-nationals. However, this reputation has repeatedly been tarnished as criticism has grown over its treatment of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants. In particular, increasing pressure from Europe to block the movement of migrants and asylum seekers is encouraging the use of enforcement tactics that violate migrants’ fundamental human rights.
Full Country ProfileNot Available
Immigration detainees
2020
Not Available
Detained asylum seekers
2020
No Data
Detained children
36,900,000
Population
2020
South Africa has increasingly viewed cross border movements through the lens of national security and criminality. According to observers, the country's Border Management Act, adopted in 2020, reflects this embrace of a securitisation agenda.
Full Country Profile0
Immigration detainees
Not Available
Detained children
2017
3,074
New asylum applications
2020
78,395
Refugees
2020
2,860,495
International migrants
2020
Every day, tens of thousands of men, women, and children are detained across the globe for reasons related to their immigration status: asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, refugees, trafficking victims, torture survivors, stateless persons, and others. The GDP relentlessly pursues information about where they are locked up and how they are treated to ensure that their human rights are respected.
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In early March, shortly into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Global Detention Project (GDP) began receiving email messages and videos from individuals claiming to know people who remained trapped in an immigration detention centre inside Ukraine, even as the war approached. … […]
Abdul Aziz Muhamat languished in detention on Manus Island for nearly six years, but throughout that time he was an indefatigable advocate for those trapped in Australia’s offshore detention system. Today, Aziz lives in Switzerland, where he was granted asylum after receiving Geneva’s prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2019. The GDP spoke to Aziz about his experiences, challenges he sees in making advocacy more effective, and his plans for the future. […]
In March, the GDP worked with partners in four countries—Poland, India, South Africa, and Morocco—to prepare submissions for the 41st Session of the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR). […]
The submission highlights concerns regarding Poland’s discriminatory detention practices of non-Ukrainian refugees, inhuman and degrading conditions in “Guarded Centres for Foreigners,” abuses of non-citizens on the border with Belarus, and the country’s increasing detention of children for migration purposes. […]
The second in the GDP’s ongoing series of webinars on international human rights mechanisms and their application to situations of migration-related detention. […]
When the 2015 refugee “crisis” drove more than a million Syrians towards Europe, the EU justified detaining these refugees for up to 18 months. Less than two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and more than one million people have already fled into neighbouring countries—but don’t expect Brussels to call for their detention this time. […]
