Human Rights of Migrants: The Situation On the Southern Border

31 January 2018. From 18:30 | Workshop | Spanish | IEMed, Barcelona

Throughout the Spanish-Moroccan border, the defense of human rights is largely in the hands of the actions of organizations and individuals who are under pressure to carry out their social and humanitarian work. The clear human rights violations that have taken place on the southern border of Spain by the police, as well as the violence of certain groups of emigrants, should alert the government to the need for a real change in migration policies and promote the rigorous application of human rights.

Esteban Velázquez, a Jesuit priest, shares his experience of assisting immigrants in northern Morocco in collaboration with Médecins sans frontières (MSF), with whom he worked in the field just before leaving the project as a denunciation of the “climate of criminal violence and the institutional and extreme precariousness “of sub-Saharan immigrants.

It is in this perspective that Velázquez indicates some of the proposals aimed at enhancing the situation of migrants. What were the biggest challenges he faced? And how has his initiative been received by the Moroccan and Spanish governments?