On 7 August, Belarusian authorities expelled a young Guinean mother while her baby remained in Belarus. Reportedly, the mother was removed without due process–including the ability to challenge her separation from her child. UN experts have condemned the incident, which reflects a broader pattern in Belarus of using parental separation from children for both immigration and political reasons.
According to the UN experts, the woman gave birth prematurely in Minsk in November 2024 and was immediately separated from her child, who was first kept in hospital before being transferred to an orphanage. Several months later, she was arrested for “illegally” staying in the country before being detained in a penal detention centre and deported from the country–without access to legal or linguistic assistance to challenge her removal and separation from her child.
Commenting on the case, the UN said: “Separating the mother from her newborn and expelling her from the country without any due process directly harms the rights of the mother and undermines the best interests of the child, and would likely amount to ill-treatment of both mother and child.”
A coalition of NGOs noted in a 2025 submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimation against Women (CEDAW) that “migration authorities…may threaten migrant women with child removal to pressure them into voluntary departure from Belarus.” Belarus also has a history of depriving parental custody from political prisoners and restricting communication between detained women and their children. In 2023 for example, Belarusian courts revoked the parental rights of 1,225 men, 595 women, and 467 couples.
Belarus’ Migration and Detention Context
Historically, Belarus has hosted modest numbers of refugees and asylum seekers from countries such as Syria, as well as labour migrants from countries like Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. In 2021, however, Belarus was accused of “weaponizing” migration by luring migrants and refugees–mainly from the Middle East–to its borders with Poland and other EU countries with false promises of easy EU access. This sparked a humanitarian crisis as thousands of migrants became stranded in border areas, with many suffering harrowing abuses. The GDP’s Michael Flynn and Rachael Reilly reported at the time: “Polish border guards were brutal in their treatment of these refugees and migrants, many of whom sustained serious injuries from Polish and Belarussian border guards. Thousands were left stranded in the forests between the two countries in deplorable conditions with no food, shelter, blankets, or medicines: at least 19 migrants died in the freezing winter temperatures.”
Since then, the crisis has continued. In June 2024, it was reported that nearly 150,000 attempts to cross into Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania had been recorded since 2021. In May, Lithuania said it had filed a case against Belarus at the International Court of Justice, stating that: “We are taking this case to the International Court of Justice to send a clear message: no state can use vulnerable people as political pawns without facing consequences under international law.”
Belarus does not operate dedicated immigration detention facilities. Instead, non-nationals are held in pre-trial (SIZO) and temporary (IVS) criminal detention facilities–where they can remain for “extended periods.” According to local NGOs, the staff in such facilities generally lack the necessary skills to appropriately support foreign nationals, “impacting the adequacy of responses to detainees’ requests for information about their rights, access to translation services, and appropriate responses to complaints regarding health and other issues.”
International bodies have also long criticised the conditions that detainees face in facilities like these. Most recently in 2025, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women noted the reported “inhumane conditions of detention for women, including overcrowding, poor hygiene, inadequate medical care and arbitrary punitive measures, such as solitary confinement, public humiliation and instigation of fights among detainees; and the State Party’s failure to conduct meaningful investigations.”
Recent Changes for Labour Migrants
At the same time, the country has been actively seeking to attract migrant labour workers to alleviate worker shortages, and in May 2025 Lukashenko signed Presidential Decree No. 202 (“On Enhancing the Role of Employers in Labor Migration”) imposing new obligations on employers, such as requiring them to sign formal contracts with migrant workers within 30 days of their arrival in Belarus or after obtaining a special work permit.
However, the new law requires migrant workers to work exclusively for one employer (with no possibility of transferring to another employer), provide access to their residence for inspections (with refusal to permit entry serving as grounds for concluding a contract), and grants employers the right to assess a migrant’s knowledge of the state language and to terminate or not conclude a contract if results are “unsatisfactory.”
In their analysis of the new law, Human Constanta notes with concern that “all aspects of a migrant’s legal stay in Belarus (work, housing, healthcare, legal status) are tied to one employer. This creates a structure of complete dependence, in which any deterioration of relations with the employer—even through no fault of the migrant—leads to loss of legal status and the threat of expulsion.” They report the case of a group of Lebanese workers who arrived with official employment contracts but who were not paid for eight months, and when their employer disappeared without renewing their residency permits authorities issued the group with deportation orders.
Related Reading:
Poland: Blocking Access to Asylum, Violating Human Rights on the Border (March 2025)
Joint Submission to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Preparation for its Visit to Poland (March 2022)
Oral Submission: Testimony on Lithuania’s Treatment of Migrants at the Border with Belarus at the UN Committee against Torture’s 72nd Session (November 2021)
