Project Description

Human Rights Watch – Brussels Office

Human Rights Watch works extensively on issues relating to asylum and migration around the world. In the European Union we work on a number of themes. We monitor human rights at EU borders, including the activities of Frontex, and have documented cases of summary pushbacks, detention, and ill-treatment of asylum seekers in Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy, and elsewhere. The treatment of unaccompanied migrant children has been a focus in France, Spain, Malta, and Italy. We also focus on rescue at sea in the Mediterranean, and in particular on European policy response to rising numbers of boat crossings.  Migrants and asylum seekers in Europe often face racism and xenophobia, as documented in Greece and Italy. Furthermore, we documented rights violations in the context of the externalization of EU migration control and EU migration cooperation with neighboring countries Morocco, Libya, and Ukraine. We have looked at the ways in which undocumented migrants face particular challenges including access to justice for victims of domestic violence in Belgium, and police harassment in Greece.