The World Health Organisation has published a new report that looks at trends of both public health and migration policies and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these affect refugee and migrant populations. The report emphasises the specific vulnerabilities faced by undocumented migrants and urges countries to consider implementing universal access to health care, in the context of COVID-19 and beyond, as well regularisation measures and alternatives to detention.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has published a report on racial justice and equality for people of African descent, which puts forward an agenda to end systemic racism and human rights violations by law enforcement against people of African descent. The report recommends using alternative methods to policing and the use of force, including in relation to migration and border management. The report also stresses the need to address false narratives which associate migration with criminality, and thereby legitimise harsh border policies.

On 15 July, the Frontex Scrutiny Working Group in the LIBE Committee published the final investigation report into the alleged role of Frontex in cases of illegal pushbacks at EU borders. While the working group did not find conclusive evidence of the direct involvement of the Agency in activities of pushbacks and/or collective expulsions, the report finds evidence that  Frontex was aware of violations carried out by Member States and failed to prevent and address them. The report highlights that Frontex consistently disregarded reports of fundamental rights violations by civil society actors and international human rights bodies, and failed to adequately respond to observations raised by the Fundamental Rights Officer (FRO), the Consultative Forum or through incident reports. The Working Group further regrets the failure of the Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri to respond to many recommendations and opinions submitted by the FRO over the course of four years. According to a Der Spiegel article, Leggeri personally instructed the FRO to delete all information that had been collected about a pushback incident.

In a recent inquiry into Frontex complaint mechanisms, published in June, the European Ombudsman found several shortcomings in the agency’s complaints framework, while finding no formal maladministration. In particular, it finds that lack of public awareness, lack of engagement of Frontex officials, and the impossibility to submit anonymous complaints are all reasons which may explain the low number of complaints introduced between 2016 and January 2021. The inquiry further finds that the way in which the complaints mechanism works isn’t sufficiently transparent, and that the Executive Director’s cooperation with the Fundamental Rights Officer isn’t satisfactory. In addition, the inquiry found that the FRO does not have sufficient independence with regard to the serious incident reports procedure.

The European Committee on Social Rights, which monitors the implementation of the European Social Charter, found that migrant children’s rights were violated by Greece. Following the collective complaint ICJ and ECRE v Greece, developed with the Greek Council for Refugees, the Committee found that accommodation conditions of migrant children, both unaccompanied and in families, violate their rights to shelter and adequate housing, health, and education. Moreover, the lack of adequate long-term accommodation, the failure to appoint guardians and the detention of children under the (now-repealed) Greek practice of ‘protective custody’ violated their right to social, legal and economic protection.

In July 2021, the French NGO La Cimade published a report on the situation of people in French administrative detention centres during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report points out serious health problems, insufficient health protocols, limited external visits and a high level of isolation. Moreover, the majority of people detained remained in the centres for longer periods due to the closure of many borders in third countries where people were supposed to be deported. Four more detention centres are currently under construction in France and will add to the 23 already operating.

In D. vs. Bulgaria, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Bulgaria violated Article 3 and Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights by forcibly returning a Turkish journalist without prior assessment of the risk of torture and ill treatment he could face back in Turkey in 2016. The case concerns a Turkish journalist who was apprehended in a truck at the Bulgarian-Romanian border in 2016 and sent back to Turkey in less than 24 hours, without being able to access a lawyer or an interpreter. PICUM’s member Center for Legal Aid - Voice in Bulgaria, which supported the applicant in the proceedings together with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and Foundation PRO ASYL, highlight that this is not an isolated incident but part of a systematic practice of pushbacks by Bulgaria.

On 8 July, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary for violating the prohibition of collective expulsions in case Shahzad v. Hungary, which saw a Pakistani national forcibly expelled from Hungary to Serbia as part of a “collective” removal, without access to individualized procedures and adequate legal remedy. This ruling is of significance in the overall interpretation of Hungarian domestic regulation on pushbacks. According to the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the police in the country carried out nearly 72,000 such pushbacks since July 2016. With this decision, for the first time, the Court declared that collective expulsions carried out by Hungary are in breach of human rights standards in EU law.

In June, a multi-stakeholder coalition (C189 Alliance) held an online event and published a report to assess progress and call for more action to protect all domestic workers’ rights, ten years since the adoption of the ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers. The C189 Alliance brings together employers’, workers’ and non-governmental organisations from across Europe as well the ILO and European Commission. The civil society actors also addressed letters to those EU countries (two thirds) who are yet to write the measures of the Convention into national law. Recordings and presentations from the event can be viewed here.

The International Labour Organisation has published a report which estimates that there are 169 million international migrant workers worldwide. This marks a 3% increase in relation to 2017 estimates. In 2019, Europe had an estimated 54.3 million migrant workers, including EU mobile citizens and third country nationals - 40.9 million (18.4% of all workers) in Northern, Central and Southern Europe and 13.4 million (9.4% of all workers) in Eastern Europe. The report finds that COVID-19 has intensified existing vulnerabilities of migrant workers, in particular women, as they are over-represented in low-paid jobs and have limited access to support services.

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has published new research finding major gaps in the implementation of the EU Employers Sanctions’ Directive when it comes to enabling exploited workers to get justice, nearly ten years since it came into force in 2011. The report highlights the need to improve complaints systems, access to compensation and residence permits, and ensure labour inspectorates focus on protecting workers and not immigration law. With an evaluation report from the European Commission expected later this year, check out PICUM’s latest blog on the issue.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) adopted a resolution calling for a holistic and rights-based approach to ensure fairness and equality between local, mobile and migrant workers. It sets out priority recommendations to ensure decent working and living conditions; affirm the obligations of intermediaries; address abusive practices in subcontracting; make social security coordination and protection more effective; expand and improve regular labour migration pathways; and improve rights enforcement and protection of all workers. This includes strong recommendations around undocumented workers’ labour rights, effective complaints mechanisms, regularisation and the role of the European Labour Authority. EFFAT (the European Federation of Food, Agriculture, and Tourism Trade Unions) has also published a position paper on labour mobility and migration, where it calls for measures to ensure all workers – including when undocumented - can enforce their labour rights and improvements to work permits to allow for in-country applications and change of employer.

After weeks of hunger strike, some 400 undocumented migrants obtained that the Belgian government examine their cases for regularisation under the existing procedures. The government has made it clear that no collective regularisation will be carried out as a result of the hunger strikes. Local grassroots organisation Union des Sans Papiers pour la Regularisation was awarded the Civic Pride Award from the European Civic Forum in recognition of their fight for clear regularisation criteria.

The UN Network on Migration published a note on Regular Pathways for Admission and Stay for Migrants in Situations of Vulnerability to assist governments in developing flexible pathways for regular migration and stay as part of their commitment to the Global Compact on Migration.