“Without access to livelihood opportunities, refugees are at risk of being harassed, exploited, marginalized, or sexually abused,” warns Olivier Beer, the Strasbourg-based UNHCR Representative to the European Institutions, in a podcast, ahead of a 27 September conference highligting the right of refugees to work.
“Because of their age, unaccompanied children are extremely vulnerable,” says the European Council On Refugees and Exiles’ senior legal and policy officer.
“We cannot escape demography,” the Secretary General said at Leiden University today. “As the stabilisation of the Euro is surely the most acute short-term challenge in Europe right now, our biggest long-term challenge is how to manage migration, not only from a legal viewpoint, but especially from a political and cultural viewpoint.”
The Parliamentary Assembly’s Tineke Strik will be in Rome on 6 and 7 September and is scheduled to meet Mediterranean Sea shipwreck survivors, officers of Italian coastguard units, representatives of NGOs and representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“Managing migration flows while protecting the human rights of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees is one of the greatest challenges which Europe currently faces. A successful policy to address these challenges should entail a more humane approach to migrants’ needs of protection and integration.”
