Photo: Kawakb Almaloumat Company 2020
Digital workshop to discus protection issues along the Central and Western Mediterranean migration routes
In a three-day digital workshop, UNHCR and the Mixed Migration Centre of the Danish Refugee Council will bring together 50 specialists on mixed movement to discuss and develop strategic recommendations to engage asylum and migration policymakers at the local, national, and international level. Follow the workshop here.
UNHCR-MMC Policy Workshop.
Protection in Mixed Movements: Policy Workshop on Protection Challenges on the Central & Western Mediterranean Routes.
15th - 17th February 2021.
The movement of refugees and migrants along the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and onwards to Europe, often encompassing a multitude of stepwise, circular, and return movements, is a longstanding, historic phenomenon.
Driven by persecution, insecurity and conflict, and socioeconomic instability and stagnation in their home countries, and seeking security, better lives and opportunities elsewhere, thousands of people continue, annually, to risk their lives on dangerous, irregular journeys by land and sea on these routes, or take advantage of limited legal pathways such as visa-free entry to countries like Morocco and Tunisia.
The complexity of mixed movement poses challenges to policymakers and practitioners along the so-called Central and Western Mediterranean Routes.
In a three-day digital workshop, UNHCR and the Mixed Migration Centre - a leading source of independent and high-quality data, research, analysis and expertise on mixed movement - brings together approximately 50 academics, practitioners, civil society advocates, and policy influencers to highlight protection challenges and identify opportunities for advocacy, policy development and reform of asylum and protection in the context of broader migration management.
The workshop will result in a set of strategic recommendations to engage asylum and migration policymakers at the local, national, and international level, reflecting discussions at the workshop and validated by participants.
The three-day digital workshop will discuss the following pertinent questions:
- How should asylum and migration actors respond to mixed flows of people, with different legal statuses, but travelling along the same routes, using the same smugglers, and facing similar risks and protection violations while on the move?
- Should actors differentiate between refugees and migrants when their needs and experiences on the move are similar and, in the immediate humanitarian response, the distinction may feel artificial to those on the ground?
- How can we better understand the factors that influence people’s decision to migrate and their aspirations? And how do the changes in human mobility in turn impact upon our world, our governance structures and policy frameworks and vice versa?
Click here to find more information and follow the livestream of the UNHCR-MMC Policy workshop.
The Mixed Migration Centre is part of the Danish Refugee Council, but acts as an independent source of data, research, analysis and policy development.