On 15 November, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) and the Global Detention Project (GDP) hosted a briefing and discussion for NGOs, IGOs, and diplomatic missions on the role social media and other new digital technologies play in migration journeys, with a special emphasis on their use in the context of detention and migration control in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

This Global Detention Project Special Report systematically compares conditions and operations at detention centres in five European countries—Norway, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland—to identify practices that may be used to develop “harm reducing” strategies in detention.

Part II of the GDP’s Special Series investigates how new information and communications technologies are used during irregular migration. Featuring on-the-ground reports, the paper examines the diverse ways migrants and refugees put social media to use during their journeys and helps address gaps in current literature regarding the role of digital platforms in contemporary migration contexts.

In June, Antonio Vitorino was elected Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Formerly a minister in the Portuguese government of the Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, Vitorino is only the second non-American director in the IOM’s history. Given the historical and political proximity between the IOM and the U.S. government, his election is a notable development. In this article for “The Conversation” (France), GDP Researcher Mariette Grange and Antoine Pécoud (Paris 13 University) examine the IOM’s relations with the U.S. and the organisation’s involvement in migration control “dirty work.”