Announcements
Confidential helpline for undocumented migrants in London
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) announces the opening of their new advice helpline for undocumented migrants in London. Undocumented migrants do not fall into any of the UK’s legal immigration categories. This includes migrants with rejected asylum applications or cases where refugee status was revoked, among others.
Funded by the Trust for London, the helpline is a completely free and completely confidential service, available to the estimated 400,000 irregular migrants in the London area. The advice line will give irregular or undocumented migrants an opportunity to contact a legal advisor to receive free and confidential advice.
Information gathered from the advice line calls will also provide JCWI with much needed information on the needs of the irregular migrant community and enable a better understanding of the nature and scale of the problem, ultimately to be used for policy development purposes.
Starting Monday 27 February 2012, the advice line, reachable at 020 7553 7470, is available for use between 10am and 1pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
United States-based legal network launches interactive policy map
In an example of how internet initiatives can strengthen legal aid and advocacy, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), which supports more than 200 legal immigration programs in the US, has created an interactive web resource that highlights local and state immigration initiatives, providing practitioners, advocates, and the general public with legal and policy analyses, technical assistance, and advocacy tools. The webpage features a clickable map and allows users to search based on topics found in bills including employment, public benefits, education, and criminal law enforcement.
Informative website on protection from sexual exploitation
In response to chronic underreporting of sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers, the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) by personnel has launched a new website to inform staff of the UN, NGOs and other international organisations of their responsibilities with regards to PSEA. The site contains information tailored to specific roles as a staff member, focal point or senior manager.
You can learn more about PSEA by accessing the online library where you will find an extensive toolkit that addresses the engagement, prevention, and response to SEA. The website is available in English, Spanish, and French. For more information, please send an email to this address.
Young People Seeking Safety (YPSS) Week in the UK
YPSS provides a formal platform for local and national groups across the UK to communicate, meet and work towards ensuring the care and human rights of young asylum seekers. In 2011, hundreds of people were involved in the YPSS week throughout the country, including elected officials, universities, local activists, charities and non-governmental organisations. Over fifty unaccompanied young people participated by contributing art, photography or film to express their experiences seeking asylum and living in the UK. Building on the success of the 2011 event, YPSS Week 2012 will take place from 30 March–5 April.
If you are a group of young people seeking safety, or an organisation that supports young asylum seekers, why not take part in this year’s week of action and raise the profile of the people and the issues at stake on a national level. Your group can run an event locally during YPSS Week 2012 and be part of the national week of action. Email organisers Lisa Matthews of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns or Alex Sutton of Praxis for more information, or to let them know what you are planning.
If you would like to host a speaker on immigration detention, there are ex-detainee speakers (who are part of Detention Action’s speaker platform) available. Contact Lisa Matthews for more information.
Alliance of African NGOs for transgender and intersex rights
Three African transgender and intersex rights NGOs, Gender DynamiX (GDX), the Support Initiative for People with Atypical Sexual Development (SIPD) and Transgender and Intersex Africa (TIA), have formed a tripartite known as Transitioning Africa, which will concentrate its efforts mainly on advocacy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main focus of this new entity is to support a growing transgender and intersex movement and to engage regionally in advocacy for the human rights of transgender and intersex people.
While forming a platform for all regional work of the three organisations, Transitioning Africa is not a new NGO but rather a formal partnership of the three organisations, which will retain autonomy locally and regionally. The organisations will implement activities, such as capacity building workshops, advocacy support to other organisations, exchange programmes and mentorships. Transitioning Africa will advocate for transgender and intersex issues within regional and international platforms directly, and support local advocacy efforts when invited. It will also aim to document the history of the transgender and intersex movement in Africa.
For more information on this alliance, contact GDX Director Liesl Theron, SIPD Director Julius Kaggwa or TIA Director Tebogo Nkoana.
International Detention Coalition (IDC) campaign to end the immigration detention of children
On 21 March 2012, the global campaign to end the immigration detention of children will be launched at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The UN High Commissioner has been invited to open the event which will take place during the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council.
Is child detention an issue in your country or do you want to support the international campaign? IDC members and other organisations can sign up by using a simple online form. At the launch, the IDC will present its global policy paper based on qualitative research and interviews with children affected by detention from all over the world. National launches are confirmed in Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, Lebanon, Mexico and the UK.
Can you organise or support a national launch in your country? Sign up to do so by following this link. A formal letter asking for your organisation’s endorsment can also be downloaded in PDF in English and in French. Please share this letter with other organisations working on children and/or immigration detention issues.
Human rights activist in Sinai wins award
On 6 February 2012, the EveryOne Group awarded the 2011 Makwan Prize for Human Rights to Egyptian activist Hamdy Ahmed Al-Azazy. The award is named after Makwan Moloudzadeh, a young Iranian gay man who was executed in 2007, and is presented yearly to individuals or organisations who have distinguished themselves by actions or projects to protect the fundamental rights of individuals, social groups and peoples. Al-Azazy is the president of the NGO New Generation Foundation for Human Rights in Arish (North Sinai, Egypt), which for years has been assisting refugees — mainly from sub-Saharan Africa — in prisons and hospitals, and defending their rights. EveryOne Group’s website describes what he does as ‘extraordinary humanitarian work [carried] out in the Sinai in an attempt to put a stop to the trafficking of sub-Saharan migrants and human organs’. The issue of the Sinai kidnappings and organ trafficking was featured in a November 2011 CNN Freedom Project report, ‘Death in the desert’.
