News

To mark World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2019, this ICMPD Expert Voice article puts the spotlight on a neglected and under-reported form of human trafficking in the context of mixed migration: trafficking for forced migrant smuggling. 

The best way to understand the situation on migration routes to Europe is to listen to people who have made the journey. Our latest research study, “The Strength to Carry On - Resilience and Vulnerability to Trafficking and Other Abuses among People Travelling along Migration Routes to Europe”, analyses people’s resilience and vulnerabilities to human trafficking and other abuses in this context. The research found that understanding factors of resilience can help to prevent trafficking, and that resilience can be boosted or compromised by migration policies and practices. 

The continued increase in the proportion of the world's population living in urban areas has placed cities at the forefront for managing migration and its current challenges. Cities are now key actors and partners of choice for regional and inter-regional dialogues on migration, and taking their priorities into account could be beneficial to the migration dialogues in several ways.

This article presents some of the findings from our in-depth, multi-country research project “Study on Trafficking Resilience and Vulnerability en route to Europe (STRIVE)”. The analysis of the research findings is still ongoing, however first results are ready to be shared. 

OFID – the OPEC Fund for International Development – yesterday hosted a roundtable at its Vienna headquarters to discuss policy options to address the interrelated challenges of development and displacement.

On 13-14 September 2018 the Austrian Ministry of Interior hosts a conference in Vienna under the auspices of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference is dedicated to cooperation with third countries and is titled “Security and Migration – Promoting Partnership and Resilience”. It brings together home affairs ministers of EU member states and third countries as well as representatives of the relevant EU agencies and international organisations. 

When Nigerian migration is discussed in the European context – for example, at policy forums and research conferences, or in the media - a number of key issues are usually mentioned. These include: the experiences of Nigerian people transiting through Libya in order to reach Europe by sea; sex trafficking of Nigerian women by means of juju oaths; and the assumption of a widespread desire to migrate to Europe among the young and growing populations of the region. 

Afghanistan is second only to Syria in the number of refugees originating from within its borders in recent years. Officially, about 2.5 million refugees have left Afghanistan in the almost four decades of this country being marked by hostilities and terror. The unofficial figure for the number of people who have fled exceeds six million. The majority of them are currently in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran as well as in Turkey. It is in this context that the first information centre for potential migrants was opened in Kabul, the Afghan capital, this week. 

In 2018, the Joint EU-ICMPD “Migration EU Expertise” (MIEUX) Initiative celebrates its 10th anniversary. MIEUX, as a veritable pioneering capacity development global Initiative, has tremendously evolved since its inception, becoming a remarkable EU peer-to-peer expert facility with worldwide recognition. MIEUX’s transformation resonates with the opportunities and challenges that the EU and its partner countries share and corresponds to the shifts in migration governance, discourses, policies and institutions all over the globe. The 2017 Annual Report reflects this evolution by illustrating how the programme contributes to enhancing migration governance, furthering EU strategic priorities, and acting as a catalyst for knowledge exchange between migration experts. To mark the launch of the 2017 Annual Report, Oleg Chirita, Programme Coordinator of Global Initiatives, shares ten lessons learnt and their significance for the future of capacity building in the field of migration. 

The approach of states to managing immigration and asylum relies to a significant extent on the assignment of categories to people entering from abroad. Yet many adults and children travelling along migration routes do not fit neatly into just one of these categories. A new ICMPD Working Paper examines the challenges, and some possible ways forward, in dealing with the nexus between asylum, migrant smuggling and human trafficking in mixed migration contexts.

The number of member states of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) has increased by one as of May 2018. Turkey has become the 17th state to join ICMPD, an international migration policy organisation founded 25 years ago with Headquarters in Vienna, Austria. ICMPD already enjoys long-lasting cooperation with Turkey and runs several projects and activities from its office in Ankara. 

Malta has been at the forefront of migration challenges in the Mediterranean for many years. As a country at the crossroads of Mediterranean cultures Malta has a unique and long-standing history related to the many aspects of migration. It has used this experience to bring the European Union and its African partners together to discuss migration issues at the Valletta Summit of 2015 and the Senior Officials’ Meeting that followed in Malta last year.

Trafficking in human beings (THB) is a complex issue. At the heart of trafficking is the exploitation of one human being against their will by another, yet a large number of legal and social issues are linked with this process. As a result, trafficking can simultaneously be considered an organised crime challenge, a human rights violation, an issue linked with migration, labour market dynamics, gender or economic development. Each of these perspectives applies a different “narrative” to explain what human trafficking is and why it occurs. These different narratives sometimes present challenges for media professionals and journalists reporting on THB, and can lead to inaccurate or damaging representations of trafficking in the media.

On 27th March the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) released the 2017 Vienna Migration Conference report. The Vienna Migration Conference (VMC) is ICMPD’s flagship event to discuss critical migration issues and to drive policy development across Member States. The 2017 VMC was held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences on 23–24 October. The publication summarises discussions, findings and conclusions presented at the VMC, and outlines a couple of recommendations to strengthen migration partnerships as frameworks for “safe, orderly and regular migration”.

ICMPD presents five Migration Partnership Priorities