This past summer, people across the globe watched in outrage as children were forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and placed in hastily set up camps and cages. Overlooked in much of the criticism, however, was the fact that children are locked behind bars for immigration-related reasons in dozens of other counties across the globe, all of whom—with the notable exception of the United States—have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. […]
Publications & Events
Briefing on Social Media, Human Rights, and Migration
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. […]
Joint Submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: Qatar
Foreigners account for nearly 90 percent of Qatar’s 2.2 million population, and thousands – including pregnant women and their children – have been detained in recent years, sometimes for periods lasting more than a year and in overcrowded conditions. The GDP and Migrant-Rights.Org’s latest submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination highlights the conditions migrants face, and presents key concerns that Qatar should address. […]
Commentary on the Global Compact’s Objective 21: Returns, Readmission, Reintegration
In mid-December, UN Member States will meet in Morocco to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. As part of a Refugee Law Initiative blog series assessing the final draft of the GCM, GDP Researcher Izabella Majcher examines the Compact’s Objective 21, concerning cooperation in facilitating safe and dignified return and readmission, […]
NEWSLETTER: October 2018
✅ Changes to France’s Immigration Detention Laws
✅ Systematic Family Detention in Poland
✅ Social Media Use in North Africa and the Mediterranean
✅ Detention of Minors in Luxembourg […]
Harm Reduction in Immigration Detention
This Global Detention Project Special Report systematically compares conditions and operations at detention centres in several European countries to identify practices that may be used to develop “harm reducing” strategies in detention. […]
Submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: Luxembourg
In 2013, following its examination of the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Luxembourg, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recommended that Luxembourg adopt legislation to prevent the detention of unaccompanied children. Today, however, the country’s legislation continues to allow for their detention. In our latest submission to the CRC, the GDP poses key questions that Luxembourg should be urged to address. […]
Immigration Detention in France: Longer, More Widespread, and Harder to Contest
France has one of Europe’s oldest and more widespread administrative immigration detention regimes, which extends from continental Europe to overseas territories in the Indian Ocean and the Americas. Nearly 47,000 people were placed in detention during 2017, about half of whom were detained in facilities located in the outré-mer. The country has budgeted more than […]
Immigration Detention in Poland: Systematic Family Detention and Lack of Individualised Assessment
Poland has experienced a sharp drop in the numbers of people applying for asylum since 2017. Yet, anti-immigrant rhetoric dominates public discourse, foreigners are viewed as security threats, and pushbacks are common along the border with Belarus. While material conditions in detention centres appear to meet basic standards, Poland rarely considers “alternatives to detention,” systematically […]
Criminalisation of Migration and Detention of Migrants
On 19 October, the GDP’s Executive Director participated in a roundtable exploring the criminalisation of migration and the detention of migrants as part of a training seminar organised by Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection entitled “Core Training on Refugees, IDPs, and Forced Migrants: Protection in Law and Practice.” More information is available here. […]
