Internal Migration and the Covid-19 Pandemic in India

This chapter looks at the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on internal migrants in India. According to the 2011 Census, there are over 450 million internal migrants, of which a massive 54 million are inter-state migrants. A large number of these migrants consist of labourers who comprise a huge percentage of the informal sector workforce, both in the rural and urban areas of India, and are vital to the country’s economy. These workers are also some of the most vulnerable, with inadequacies in terms of working conditions and coverage of social safety nets, and are also largely absent from India’s policy discourses. This chapter highlights the size and extent of internal migration as well as its distribution across different states in India. It shows how the current crisis and lockdowns have affected their lives and livelihoods. It particularly looks at the responses of central and various state governments – at destinations and origins – to ensure migrants’ wellbeing. It also analyses the socioeconomic impact of the migrant exodus from major destinations and looks at solutions to enable and ensure that migration patterns in the future are sustainable, and more importantly, ensure migrants’ rights and dignity.

Offense of organizing illegal migration: subject of the offense

The fight against trafficking of migrants is a common international concern that ensures the protection of the rights not to be subjected to slavery and conditions similar to slavery. This article deals with the subject of the crime of organizing illegal migration. Particular attention is paid to the status of the migrant, who under certain conditions can be considered the subject of the crime under consideration. In the Republic of Moldova, the trafficking of migrants is protected by the crime of “organizing illegal migration”. Paragraph 4 of Article 3621 of the Criminal Code, exonerates the migrant from criminal liability for the act prejudicial to the organization of illegal migration. However, the issue arises when the migrant is the object of the crime within the meaning of the Protocol against Trafficking of Migrants. The article analyzes the special quality of the subject of the crime and of the beneficiaries of international humanitarian protection. In the author’s opinion, there are many questions that need to be elucidated, such as: who is the subject of the crime? How old is he/she? What is the special subject of the crime, and what are the conditions when the migrant can be prosecuted? In the author’s view, in order to avoid violations of migrants’ rights, the Moldovan legislature must strengthen its position on the protection of migrants’ rights so that the national criminal law (which responsibly ensures the protection of migrants’ rights) complies with the Additional Protocol on Trafficking of Migrants, having as material object the migrant’s body (material object).

Conceptualising Syrian War Migrations: Displacements, Migrants’ Rights and the Major Reception Regimes

This article focuses on the migration of people from Syria after the outbreak of the civil war. The ambition of the article is to develop and nuance the typology of migrations of Syrians and relate the categories of international migrants to their rights, as provided by various reception regimes. The proposed typologies may help us better to understand the complexity of the migrations and the inconsistencies in reception and humanitarian standards. We argue that migration trends, reception regimes and the positioning of the Syrian refugees and migrants are highly interconnected and dynamic factors, resulting in different regular and irregular flows and migrant statuses. Furthermore, it is maintained that the management of the Syrian humanitarian and refugee crisis has revealed – and probably more so than any other, comparable event – the variety of inconsistencies in migration and protection policies and the widespread lack of will for more equitable burden-sharing.

General comment No. 5 (2021) on Migrants’ Rights to Liberty, Freedom from Arbitrary Detention and their Connection with other Human Rights

Article 16 of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families protects the right of migrant workers and members of their families to liberty and security of person. Under Article 17, those deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person and for their cultural identity. The Committee on Migrant Workers’ General Comment No. 5 (2021) provides authoritative interpretation of articles 16 and 17 and other articles of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in the context of the rising trend towards criminalization of migration and increasingly frequent use of detention of migrants. General Comment No. 5 (2021) intends to provide guidance to States on fulfilling their obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in relation to the right to liberty and protection against arbitrary detention, and other intersecting human rights obligations and other human rights obligations arising from the intersection of those rights with other human rights. The General Comment is also aimed at providing guidance to States on the implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and to other stakeholders on implementing initiatives to promote and protect human rights and to monitor compliance thereof.

Human security at the Mediterranean borders: humanitarian discourse in the EU periphery

This article provides a re-conceptualization of human security by exploring humanitarian discourse in the EU periphery. It analyzes human security at the Mediterranean borders by focusing on humanitarian, migrant-centered discourse concerned with defending the world’s most vulnerable populations (Barnett in Annual Review of Political Science 16(1): 379-398, 2013). Empirical research has detected humanitarian discourse defending migrants’ rights, based on claims for the right to be free from inhuman treatment (Aradau in Millennium: Journal of International Studies 33(2): 251–77, 2004), as a counter-argument to the defense and closure of the borders. A humanitarian discourse focused on the alleviation of migrants’ physical and mental suffering erupted at the EU periphery when the Italian government denied a port of safety to the SeaWatch3 vessel in January 2019. This case study provides an example of center-periphery conflictual dynamics. The Italian government, defending the EU/Italian borders by closing the Italian ports, was challenged by actors mobilizing pressure, shaming the state into compliance and requesting pro-migrant legislation.

Professional identity construction in the healthcare sector

Professionals who engage with migrants in the healthcare sector may take on the role of mediator of information or advisor. Research has shown how these roles might either facilitate or obstruct migrants’ access to healthcare, but little is known about how professionals navigate the potentially conflicting interests of migrants and representatives of the healthcare system, despite their central role in realizing migrants’ rights to healthcare. This article explores the perspectives of professionals in the Swedish healthcare sector who engage in mediating healthcare information to migrants across linguistic and cultural boundaries and advising them on how to access services. Narrative interviews with five stakeholder groups were conducted. The narrative analysis of two focal excerpts from different professional groups demonstrates how these professionals construct mediating as multidirectional, providing information to the migrants and also keeping the state authority informed. The findings reveal the importance of the knowledge positions that different professionals construct in their narratives and to what extent these support their perceived potential to change the healthcare system. In contrast to findings from other studies, the participants are adamant as regards the importance of treating migrants within the framework of the legal provisions, rather than by finding ways around legal constraints. Nevertheless, the use of rhetorical means to create an effective story can bear the danger of perpetuating one-sided accounts of the migrants and other stakeholders.

The Security Sector Governance–Migration Nexus: Rethinking how Security Sector Governance matters for migrants’ rights

The main argument is that improving migrants’ rights and conceptual linkages between SSG/R and migration is best achieved, by decentring our gaze, namely going beyond the ‘national’ and ‘state-centric’ view that characterizes traditionally SSG/R and to consider the agency of both migrants and SSR actors. First from a migrants’ perspective, it is key for SSR actors to go beyond traditional legal classifications and to consider the diversity of personal situations that involve refugees, stranded migrants and asylum seekers, which might endorse different roles at different times of their journeys and lives. Second, the transnational nature of migration calls for a transnationalization of SSG/R too. For too long the concept has mostly been applied within the national setting of SSR institutions and actors. Migration calls for a clear decentring that involves a transnational dimension and more work among transnational actors and policymakers to facilitate a norm transfer from the domestic to the interstate and international level. As such, the ‘transnational’ nature of migration and its governance needs to be ‘domesticated’ within the national context in order to change the mindset of SSG/R actors and institutions. More importantly, the paper argues that poor SSG/R at home produces refugees and incentivizes migrants to leave their countries after being victims of violence by law enforcement and security services. During migrants’ complex and fragmented journeys, good security sector governance is fundamental to address key challenges faced by these vulnerable groups. I also argue that a better understanding of migrants’ and refugees’ security needs is beneficial and central to the good governance of the security sector. After reviewing the key terms of migration and its drivers in section 2, section 3 reviews how SSG is part of the implementation of the GCM. SSR actors play a role in shaping migratory routes and refugees’ incentives to leave, in explaining migrants’ and refugees’ resilience, in protecting migrants and refugees, and in providing security. Although it cautions against artificial classifications and the term of ‘transit migration’, section 4 reviews what the core challenges are in the countries of origin, transit and destination. Section 5 provides a detailed overview of the linkages between migration and each security actor: the military, police forces, intelligence services, border guards, interior ministries, private actors, criminal justice, parliaments, independent oversight bodies and civil society. Section 6 formulates some recommendations.