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Call for the Development of Humanitarian Standards of Response to Migrant Victims of Violence and Trauma Crossing Borders

Submitted to the Council of Europe European Committee on Migration (CDMG)
at its meeting 11-12 October 2007, Strasbourg
by John K. Bingham, ICMC Head of Policy

- With reference to Agenda Item VI: Activities of the European Union and other international organisations in the field of migration.

The International Catholic Migration Commission is a participant with observer status in the Council of Europe and engages in particular with the Council's European Committee on Migration. ICMC welcomes the recent work that the Council and its member States have done to develop and raise standards in the areas of education, employment and integration of migrants and was happy to contribute this year to the Council's recommendation on co-development.

One of the more complicated challenges Europe faces in migration today is how to respond to mixed migration flows, that is, migratory flows comprising both migrants and refugees. Especially on the southern or eastern borders of Europe, such flows invoke a number of regional and international conventions and related obligations, from the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (1974) and the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (1979) to the numerous UN and European conventions relating to refugees, torture, and human rights.

Increasingly, it is a dangerous flow. With estimates like those of immigration authorities in the Canary Islands that as many as 6,000 people died or disappeared in 2006 alone just trying to cross the waters from the west coast of Africa, it is evident that large numbers of those making these crossings have reason to fear death right there in the crossing.

For the survivors of such crossings and the States that receive them, the application of international and regional conventions can be complicated as well, especially the effort to distinguish refugees from migrants. What should not be complicated however is the need to offer humanitarian assistance to those who are injured or traumatized while migrating. This is a need at once beyond rescue at sea, and beyond attention to refugees alone. It is a need of all migrants who are victims of violence or trauma in these crossings, regardless of their status, and a need for urgent humanitarian responses after they are rescued or arrive.

Our members and NGO partners see this need vividly on the shores and borders of Europe: a man whose feet were both amputated after being forced to stand in gasoline in a boat crossing to Spain; 26 shipwrecked human beings clinging to fishing nets and towed for 3 days in the Mediterranean: men, women and children being stabbed, shot, starved or thirsted to near-death, raped, injected with drugs, doused with chemicals and/or abandoned while crossing the sea or in desolate border areas-or witnessing such violence before their very eyes-in these boat and land crossings. These are not exceptional stories. In the media, throughout Europe and the world, the suffering on these voyages is reported every day.

These people are victims-and they need care. Medical attention for those physically injured; psycho-social care for those traumatized, and for children unaccompanied by an adult, formal processes to determine what is in the child's best interest. Humanitarian assistance for all.

On the boats and in these crossings, a small percentage of people apprehended actually assert their fear of persecution in strict Refugee Convention terms. While we agree with UNHCR and States that it is essential to continue to distinguish those who have and raise claims to asylum, and to respond with all of the international law and architecture that have responded to refugees over the past 56 years, that should not end the conversation, or the need for a protection response regarding the others.

For if violence in these crossings does not distinguish between refugees and other migrants, why should we distinguish among the victims of such violence as to who will receive physical and psychosocial care on arrival?

This is a gap that we must fill. Although the national Red Cross-Red Crescent societies and many church and other organizations respond commendably to injured and traumatized migrants arriving in a number of places, such a response is needed everywhere that migrants are victims of violence in transit. The response must be more than voluntary, more than ad hoc, and better resourced.

Filling the gap requires not only international, but regional work, on norms of protection and humanitarian services to help these migrant victims of violence and trauma.

At the international level, we have met with and been encouraged by high officials of the UN refugee and human rights agencies. We appreciate in particular the "10-point plan of action" issued by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, and related conversations we have had with UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Erika Feller. The 10-point plan explicitly calls for steps to be taken and mechanisms developed "to establish entry systems that are able to identify new arrivals with international protection needs and which provide appropriate and differentiated solutions for them, side by side with other solutions as need to be pursued for other groups involved in mixed movements." [Emphasis added.]

We note that at the meeting of UNHCR's Executive Committee in Geneva last week, Mrs. Feller reiterated her determination to look to the regions to suggest specific adaptations and applications in responding to mixed migratory flows. Similarly, in a meeting a few days earlier with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mrs. Louise Arbour, we were told that her office has recently identified this issue as a special priority, working with UNHCR and other partners, both at the international and regional levels.

Clearly, the development of appropriate steps and mechanisms of response need regional guidance. Given its purview, authority, and singular reputation, we request the Council of Europe to offer that guidance, especially with respect to migrant victims of violence or trauma on Europe's southern and eastern borders, regardless of the initial motivation for their migration.

We encourage and are eager to work with the Council of Europe on this.

Thank you.