Many migrants in Europe care for homes, children and the elderly. Many need care too. Does the new #EUCareStrategy care about them?
Follow our 🧵 to know more ⬇️
2. Let's start with the positives. The Strategy recognises the poor working conditions of migrant domestic & care workers; and calls on member states to address gaps in enforcement of EU labour law and ratify ILO Convention 189 to protect ALL domestic workers.
3. The Strategy commits to launching a study to map current admission conditions and rights of migrant long-term care workers. And proposes that governments explore migration pathways.
4. The Strategy also underlines that all children are entitled to early childhood education & care. And pushes for more participation of younger and migrant children in it, recognising financial/admin barriers that prevent parents from accessing it.
5. What we don't like is that the Strategy falls short of underlining the essential role migrant workers already play in providing care in the EU; and that it continues a utilitarian demand-driven approach to labour migration.
6. As we monitor impact of #EUCareStrategy, we call on 🇪🇺 govs to:
📌 reform labour migration pathways to prioritise decent work & social inclusion;
📌 adopt regularisation measures;
📌 realise labour/social rights of undocumented workers already working in the EU;
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7. 📌 ensure all children at risk of poverty are entitled to free, high-quality formal early childhood education and care;
📌 ensure all people in need of care have equal access to quality services.
The EU Migration Pact is built on the assumption that all people who arrive or reside in the EU irregularly and whose asylum applications are unsuccessful should leave Europe.
But people can have other reasons for staying in Europe other than asylum, for instance because their departure would put them at risk of serious human rights violations. This is known as the principle of non-refoulement.
🧵 Here we go again: after the UK's deal with Rwanda, Austria looking to follow suit, and the EU-Tunisia deal - Italy vows to build two new centres in Albania to externalise border management.
What we know, what we don't know, what we think 👇🏾
According to news reports (no official text is available yet), Italy and Albania struck a deal that would see Italy building an identification and a deportation centre in Albania for people rescued at sea by the Italian coast guard and navy.
What we know so far:
🏗️ The centres should open in spring 2024, holding up to 3,000 people every month.
🤰🏾 Pregnant women, children, people with vulnerabilities wouldn't be transferred to these centres but made to land in Italy.
🛟 People rescued by NGOs would also land in Italy.
🧵 Something that wasn't said in #SOTEU2023 is that the very EU rules on work permits are facilitating the exploitation of migrant workers - and that we need to change them.
A few words on new research we supported - carried out by @weatherburn_amy @ULBruxelles.
📚 New research we supported - carried out by @weatherburn_amy @ULBruxelles - shows how the exploitation of migrant workers working in the EU under a combined residence + work permit (“single permit”) is facilitated by EU rules, such as those in the Single Permit Directive.
👩🏭 Workers interviewed in Belgium, Czech Republic and Spain reported wage theft, illicit wage deductions, long working hours, and discrimination at the workplace and in accessing private housing.
To start with, #migration - as it often happens in EU policy circles - was discussed in the same chapter as "security". Difficult not to see migration being framed as a threat when put it like this.
"with the Pact, we are striking a new balance.
Between protecting borders and protecting people"
Well, firstly, there shouldn't be a balance between borders and people. People should always come first.
🧵 AI should be regulated so that everyone is protected, whatever their skin colour/migration story. But the #AIAct the European Parliament is set to vote on is silent about something extremely dangerous: it's called "non-remote biometric identification". euronews.com/2023/04/24/as-…
Non-remote biometric identification systems (NRBI) include hand-held devices that scan faces, fingerprints or palms, & voice or iris identification tech used by police to identify you.
These systems are harmful in several ways. For one thing, personal data collected through these devices could be leaked and sent to other places for other goals. This is how a military database of fingerprints and iris scans was found on sale on eBay 👇 nytimes.com/2022/12/27/tec…
🧵 On 28 March, the European Parliament will vote on key files of the EU #MigrationPact. The unofficial agreements between parties that we’ve seen can be summed up in: more detention, quicker deportations. A little thread to understand what this would mean 👇
Children above 12 could be detained at borders in some circumstances. Despite the internationally recognised definition of children being every person until the age of 18, the compromises would validate a new line in the middle of adolescence.
People would be automatically detained while waiting for their deportation, if they were already detained in asylum border procedures or if they try to avoid deportation.