MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION - Moving towards greater INCLUSION AND SOCIAL COHESION
How are we as a society doing in terms of inclusion, unity, and integration? How are people on the move treated within communities and while on the move? In some ways society is more accepting, inclusive, and understanding than it has been in previous years. The pandemic has shaken the foundations of existence across the world and exposed our fragility. We have a new appreciation for humanity, human dignity and for life itself. Yet in the midst of...
The advocates' migration brief - accessing Asylum
Whenever someone flees their country due to persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion or flees due to war, violence or events seriously disturbing to public order they should be able to apply for refugee status in the country they flee to. Someone applying for refugee status is an asylum seeker. Regrettably at some stages in South Africa’s recent history there have been and to a lesser extent still are...
Missing Migrants and IOM Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) webinar
Did you know migrants are facing many challenges including locating their loved ones who have gone missing? There are many migrants traveling with little to no documentation. Without documentation it is hard to find these individuals and locate loved ones if they go missing. Migrants are dying in the sea, in deserts (especially in the Sahara in the African Context (1)) and at various unofficial border posts because of the increase in monitoring and border policing...
Only One Home (UnaSolaCasa) Humanity’s Response to the Test of Covid-19
At the end of March 2020, in the midst of the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Scalabrinian Missionaries for the Europe and Africa region, through the Scalabrinian Agency for Cooperation and Development (ASCS), have promoted in their regional network of missionary positions and initiatives (Scalabrini International Migration Network - regional SIMN) through a campaign to raise awareness and funds to primarily support migrants and refugees as "neighbours", who are suffering under the pandemic, due...
A migrant is born
We have, over the centuries, done a great disservice to the Biblical challenge of Christmas. We have sadly reduced it to shiny tinsel, Christmas trees, strings of fairy lights and mince pies. All of which are fine in their own way but all of which also blunt us to the sharp challenge of the first Christmas and the politics that that commits us to. This is true for the poor, for the marginalised, for the peoples whose stories...
Refugee Status? Included in or Excluded from Refugee Protection?
SIHMA’s new research paper series is coming out this December 2020 entitled the Advocates’ Migration Brief and addresses recent judicial decisions relating to people on the move. The first paper in the series convers an aspect of international and domestic refugee law being exclusion from refugee status. In the refugee status determination process, it is important to establish whether a person falls within the definition of a refugee to receive protection from the host state. Some individuals though...
